'Korea Society for Computational Fluids Engineering'
Abstract
This Briefing Paper aims to break the sterile exchange of well established positions
that has characterised EU–African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) debate on trade for
the past five years or more. Negotiations have now begun for a successor to the trade
regime in the current Cotonou Agreement. The new trade regime is scheduled to be in
place by 2008.
The first phase of negotiations covers general principles. There is disagreement
between the ACP (which want this phase to last a year and result in a binding
agreement on the areas covered) and the EU (which appears to want a shorter time
period and no binding agreement). But in either case, serious, informed negotiation
for phase 2 cannot occur unless certain basic research has been completed.
The Briefing Paper describes the potential implications for agriculture of a new trade
agreement. It assesses the data and analysis that is required to understand ACP
interests. And it indicates which data and analyses are already available, which need
to be undertaken, and the priority areas for this new work.
The ACP–EU negotiations are taking place during a period when there are many
other, parallel negotiations all of which will have inter-related effects. For both
practical and developmental reasons, the ACP need to identify, first, their national
development priorities and, second, their regional goals. These should be the
foundations on which their multilateral policy is based. Trade policy with the EU
needs to be tailored so that it is compatible with these national, regional and
multilateral priorities. The tail of a trade agreement with one (albeit important) trade
partner should not wag the dog of national, regional or multilateral policy.
A high priority for new research is to identify the potential implications of reciprocity
in the area of agriculture. An initial set of scoping studies can be based upon a
simplifying assumption that the terms of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)
will be similar to those of the EU–South Africa Trade, Development and Cooperation
Agreement EU–SAFTA). They can use various hypothetical EPA memberships to
show the range of potential effects.
This initial set of studies will allow each ACP state to identify the range of
agricultural products that could be excluded from an EPA. In this way, they can
identify more clearly than is possible at present the potential competitive and fiscal
effects of reciprocity. To the extent that ACP states lower their restrictions on imports
from the EU, domestic producers will face greater competition. And, unless
alternative revenue sources are obtained, a lowering of tariffs will, at least in the
medium term, result in a fall in government revenue.
Agricultural producers stand to be affected by both impacts. They will face increased
competition from cheaper food imports. And they may suffer from any knock-on
effects of reduced government revenue on lower agricultural development
expenditure.
Such sensitivity analysis will not only guide ACP states on the potential effects of
different EPA memberships. They will also help identify the ways in which
development and regional integration strategies need to evolve to overcome the new challenges. For these outcomes to arrive in good time for the phase 2 negotiations
data gathering needs to commence by November 2002
