Textbuch zur Auslandsakademie Afrique en ... - Cusanuswerk

24
New Clothes of Colonialism?
EU`s integration of Cameroon’s Economy into the World Economy
by STEFAN ROSTOCK, ADEID 1, Bafoussam
U`s relation towards Africa after the
Second World War is showing
changing faces. The agreements of
Yaoundé (1963) and Lomé (1975) were trade
related development agreements. Followed
by the Cotonou agreement (2000) the
agenda widens towards cultural and social
issues, while the trade agenda aims at trade
liberalisation, free trade and the integration
of ACP countries into the world economy.
The trade negotiations are leading towards
a complete integration of the ACP countries,
including LDCs into the WTO. The
46 African States among the 75 ACP countries
contributes with less then 1% to the
world economy. The Waiver (WTO special
permission for EU trade preferences for
ACP-countries) is under critic and ends in
December 2007. WTO rules demand that a
new, WTO conform bilateral trade agreement
has to be developed. The EU has splitup
the ACP group and negotiates with six
ACP regions 2 . The sometimes strong group
of development countries, see the WTO
negotiations in Seattle (1999), Doha (2001)
and Cancun (2003), is now split-up in fractions.
What development countries oppose
on the multilateral level the EU is now
negotiating bilateral.
According to the Cotonou-Agreement,
„new, WTO-conform trade-regulation, shall
remove existing trade-impediments between
EU and ACP step-by-step“ the cooperation
in all trade-relevant areas „builds on the
initiatives of the ACP-Countries to the
regional integration“ 3 . With Cameroon as
member of the central-African economicregion
CEMAC began the negotiations in
October 2003. The step-by-step transposition
of the new economic-partnership agreements
(EPA) will take place 2008 to 2020.
The full integration into the WTO in 2020
is one aim, 80-90% liberalised trade in reciprocity
between the „partners“ EU and ACP
countries is another. Parts of the Cameroonian
civil-society contribute to the process
and try to hold step with the speed and the
negotiation-style of EPA negotiations.
In international media the EU is often
described as „good“, which means taking
care on development, social and cultural
issues, mainly in contradiction towards the
US trade negotiation policy. But it seems
that this is furthermore a result of better
public relation and less aggressive languages.
Different studies 4 indicate that often EU
bilateral trade agreements negotiate even