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0 “East Africa must not sign the EPA trade agreement with the EU.”
By Harid Mkali
London, England.
Diplomacy certainly has its place in international relations. However, when a state’s vital national interests are in peril what is needed is straight-talking, not diplomatic niceties – and straight-talking is what I intend to do in this piece.
According to The Business Daily newspaper of February 07, 2022, as well as The East African of February 08, 2022, Tanzania is now considering signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU). If this goes ahead it will be Tanzania’s greatest blunder since independence. The so-called Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanism are two of the greatest threats facing the East African people today – possibly greater than ignorance, poverty, and disease combined. Why? Because, unlike these well-recognized threats which can be overcome through effective domestic initiatives, it will be next to impossible to overcome or reverse the dire consequences of the EPA and ISDS once signed. Aside from this, the whole notion of a ‘partnership’ is simply a lie because the European Union will be dictating all terms of this relationship.
The EPA is an agreement of indefinite duration in which the EU gives itself the powers to dictate and overrule any decision made by the East African Community (EAC) member states. If that is not reversing our hard-won independence then what is it?
It should be noted here that former President Benjamin Mkapa wrote 2 articles in 2012 and 2016 which were published in the “Daily News”, the latter entitled “EPA has never made much sense for Tanzania” in which he wrote: “The cost (of signing the EPA) for the country and the East African Community (EAC) region would have been higher than the benefits. As a Least Developed Country (LDC), Tanzania already enjoys the Everything But Arms (EBA) preference scheme provided by the European Union i.e. we can already export duty-free and quota-free to the EU market without providing the EU with similar market access terms.” In these articles, Mr. Mkapa excellently examined the EPA question from all angles and concludes that East Africa does not need trade pacts like the EPA. These articles should be essential reading by all policy planners and decision-makers in the East African region, but notably, those now negotiating this Agreement.
The ISDS, which is an integral part of the EPA, is a system that legalises foreign corporations to claim millions or billions of dollars from governments that pass laws impinging upon their anticipated corporate profits, in effect proscribing those governments from passing legislation that protects their citizens and the environment. For example, under the terms of ISDS, Argentina was forced to pay Vivendi, a French conglomerate, US$100 million after the Argentine Government intervened to save their citizens from overcharging for water and waste-water services. Another French company, Veolia, sued Egypt for US$82 million for raising the minimum wage, while a Swedish company, Vattenfall, sued Germany for 4.7 billion euros after its Parliament voted to phase out nuclear power following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. There are many more such cases in progress at the moment. In fact, since 1994 over 127 cases have been brought against 20 EU member states by multinational companies claiming compensation for lost profits. The aims and objectives of ISDS have been changed from the original aims of reassuring the safety of foreign investment in Third World countries to replacing rule by elected and accountable governments with rule by unelected, unaccountable multinational corporations across the globe, mainly of US origin.
Ironically, multinational corporations have been trying for many years to tie the EU itself up into the now-dead Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with the US. However, TTIP collapsed with France and then Germany pulling out of an agreement that was clearly not in their interests. Why then should East Africa now seriously consider signing up to a similar trade pact with the EU?
Moreover, under the EPA East Africa would not be able to trade freely with the rest of the world without seeking the permission of the EU first. Whether such permission would be granted is beside the point, the real question being ‘what is the point of being ‘independent’ if we cannot make such basic decisions ourselves?’ Considering that 88 percent of the world’s trade is outside the European Union where is the logic of confining ourselves to such a small market? Furthermore, in the last ten years, the only regions that have not experienced growth are the European Union and Antarctica!
In addition, tying regional trade to the EU, East African states would have their own industrial development severely curtailed due to the opening up of our markets to an influx of heavily subsidised, industrial products from the EU as a condition of this EPA. At a time when the future economic development and stability of Africa depends on its ability to exploit its own resources the last thing needed is a stranglehold on industrial development in the region.
Aside from ruining the prospects of industrial development the EPA will also damage East African agriculture which will face stiff competition from the EU’s heavily-subsidized food produce. So as to pull the wool over the eyes of East African negotiators the EU has inserted Article 78 (2) which commits the European Union not to send subsidized foods to East Africa. However, when all EU farmers are assisted by large subsidies, where is the EU going to get food-stuffs that are free of subsidy for export to East Africa?
Again, to fool the East Africans, the EU has provided Articles 15 (2 & 3) which allows the EAC to impose temporary export tariffs which may or may not be renewed after review by the EPA Council. East Africa has the potential to become a formidable exporter of oil, gas, and helium, and future losses in revenue by exporting all these resources without export taxes are incalculable. Why would East Africa’s decision to tax her own resources be subject to European Union’s approval? Are we still going to be independent nations or colonies of the European Union through this so-called Partnership?
The Presidents of East Africa must reject being bought and used by multinational corporations against their own peoples. Under the Transatlantic Treaty and Investment Partnership (TTIP), which like the EPA carried ISDS conditionality, foreign corporations would have been granted powers to neutralise the powers of Presidents, Prime Ministers or Chancellors and to neutralise the powers of parliaments and national courts – in effect a coup-d’etat.
Is this what we want for East Africa? Now, one could well ask here why any politician would ever agree to enter into an agreement that puts their nation into such an economic and political stranglehold? One can only conclude that such a leader has been “bought” by the external parties who would benefit, which are certainly not the nation and people they were elected to serve. Kenya is persuading the rest of East Africa to sign this pernicious agreement, mainly to save the flower growers of Kenya. But what is at stake here is so much bigger and more serious than that; our individual national freedoms and industrial development are of far greater importance.
If the EPA is not signed, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan will still enjoy the duty-free and quota-free access to the European Union market through the Everything But Arms preferential scheme; while Kenya will lose Market Access Regulation but will still keep the Generalised Scheme of Preferences which largely eliminates EU tariffs.
In other words, East Africa will gain nothing by signing the EPA but will lose everything, including sovereignty and the region’s plan for industrialization. So, the price of signing is simply too high. Therefore, I beseech our East African Presidents to seriously reconsider the signing of this EPA for the sake of our future as independent and sovereign nations.
If this Agreement, which contains all the hallmarks of reducing East Africa to a European satellite, goes ahead then rest assured that you are all likely to be remembered in the history books as the Presidents who re-instated colonialism in East Africa. Is this what you want for your legacy? I believe that on the basis of your achievements so far, your leaderships deserve a better epitaph.
Harid Mkali is an Author and Journalist based in London, England. He can be reached through email: mkali@live.co.uk, Tel: +44 7979881555.
