EPA Review Annex Documents - DFID

understand the changing environments that in the era of globalisation business techniques differ
from as usual. It is also needed to build the capacity of negotiators to upgrade their negotiation
skills through training in negotiation skills and trade policy, to rejuvenate the institutions that will
implement the EPA such as the Federal Ministry of Commerce, other regulatory institutions,
NAFDAC, Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), quarantine service, and trade facilitators like
customs.
Elements necessary to conclude the EPA process is the Goods Agreement after which such
issues as intellectual property, services and other issues can be negotiated. As non-problematic
as this may seem, going by ECOWAS Ministers’ conditionality for signing the EPA at their
meeting in Abuja on 15 May 2009 that “no EPA development fund commitment at acceptable
threshold, no signing of EPA”, and that “market access must be linked to development”,
concluding EPA may not be so soon if a compromise is not reached on these issues. The
second conditionality is perhaps related to EU’s interpretation of GATT Article 24 as 80%- or
20% exclusion of sensitive products, while West Africa has insisted on 60-40% or at worst 70%-
30%. West Africa insists that the definition of the translation of GATT article 24 is self serving,
i.e. defining in a way to suit one’s own interest. Therefore, when the development fund is
discussed more concretely in terms of magnitude, availability and access, West African
countries will sign the EPA. Also, the ECOWAS CET, market access offer and Rules of Origin
negotiations need to be completed quickly.
Non-state actors’ especially civil society organisations have influenced the negotiations in
several ways. One was to ensure that stakeholders’ interests are created to discuss the EPA.
Second was to make the focus of negotiations of the EPA more development-oriented. Third,
the civil society organisations, though few in number, have strategized with government,
ensuring that stakeholders are carried along in the process and that the procedure for the
negotiation is a bottom-up approach.
The fact that most of the process in the country has been supported by the EU has
impacted negatively on the negotiations. The ECOWAS Commission, that could have financed
the negotiations but were not in a position to pay their community levies as they were underfunded
(similarly to most member countries) due to poverty or not attaching sufficient
importance to regional integration. Nonetheless, even if community levy was available, its ability
to sufficiency control the financial challenges posed by the EPA is in doubt. Another school of
thought, however perceives that financial support of the EU for the EPA negotiations is not
completely wrong as such support is self-interest seeking. Furthermore, the EU wanted these
negotiations more seriously than West Africa and should be able to support the process.
It has also affected the process negatively because of the issue of ownership. When experts
from the academics who are indifferent to the source of funding are involved, the EU or a
member country that provides funding becomes uncomfortable with the fact of the inconsistency
of paying for a study which turns out to predict negative or unfavourable results. To reiterate,
even the top level of the ECOWAS Commission feels awkward to own studies that were not
paid for by the Commission.
Loss of preferences from Cotonou and impact on the incentives to sign EPA. EPA is itself
a preferential arrangement that was supposed to replace Cotonou on 31 December 2007. The
pressure to have a replacement which is reciprocal should have come from the private sector
that benefit from the preferences. However, as this was not the case it suggests that the
proportion of the private sector that lost the preferences is small. As a result, the loss of
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