EPA Review Annex Documents - DFID

of their preferences as well as the ongoing reform of the Common Agricultural Policy
(CAP). As a consequence, during these stages, negotiators had one eye on the EPAs
and the other eye on the Doha Round negotiations. For example, in July/August 2003
some frictions appeared between ACP countries since some of them benefit from the
EU’s subsidy regime (particularly on sugar) while others do not benefit. 6
It also has to be considered that given the geographical scope of the negotiations, a
wide group of ACP countries with very little or almost inexistent trade and even
diplomatic relationships needed to fix common positions before negotiations. This
substantially slowed down the negotiation process. Despite being part of the same
negotiation group, there was very little knowledge of their negotiation same side
partners. So, the fact that during phase I, negotiations included all of the ACP countries
made progress very slow.
The ACP countries made clear that trade and labour standards should not be part of the
market access negotiations, but instead they should remain within the sphere of the
International Labour Organisation (ILO) and, eventually the WTO.
After a year of negotiations, some convergences were found but there were still a wide
range of issues that were not clear. Both parties agreed that the level of market access
that the EU had to provide to the ACP countries under EPA had to be improved.
However, under the increasing trade liberalisation and particular, in light of the Doha
Round negotiations, it was clear for the ACP countries that an improved access to the
EU will be only achieved through more favourable rules of origins and a comprehensive
treatment of non-trade barriers. At this stage, the position of the EU was not clear on
these topics and they agreed that discussions on the remaining divergences on general
issues should continue in parallel with the regional level negotiations.
As was mentioned, the issue of additional sources of finance to support the regional
integration processes as well as to assure the benefits of trade liberalisation were
present constantly in the ACP position. Again, the EU maintained its position that these
types of discussions can be held in parallel with the EPA negotiations and that the
sufficient development resources and instruments were available under the Cotonou
Agreement, managed through the European Development Fund. Each region had to
establish a Regional Preparatory Task Force (RPTF) which would provide a link
between the provisions and EPA trade negotiations. The RPTFs would be responsible
for monitoring EPA negotiations and making recommendations on the type of support
needed to the officials responsible for programming development finance.
When negotiations on phase II began at the beginning of 2004, there were still several
points to clarify. They agreed to continue talking at the all-ACP level with the EU on rules
of origin, dispute settlement, trade related issues (not Singapore issues) and the nonexecution
clause, for which the EU could suspend its commitments under the Cotonou
Agreement if an ACP member failed to respect human rights, democratic principles and
the rule of law; fundamental foundations of the agreement and EPAs. However,
considering the latter, a problematic point arose given the possibility that in case that
one country non-compliance to EPA rules, EU trade sanctions could be applied to the
whole EPA region. Moreover, there existed the possibility that the non-execution clause
could be applied to all EPA region members if one of them does not comply with the
6 Trade Negotiations Insights, Vol. 2, No. 4, August, 2003.
7