REPA Booklet - Stop Epa

arrangement that gives them duty free entry for ‘essentially all’ goods. Others, especially those who have
little trade with Europe, can make use of the General System of Preferences that the European Union offers
to all ‘developing’ countries. Those with major interests in specific commodities can seek to negotiate these
separately with the EU.
In theory, opting out of an Economic Partnership Agreement should not affect access to aid funding under
the European Development Fund; in practice, however, the Fund is now tied to the Commission’s structural
adjustment and trade liberalisation agenda. That linkage should not be conceded by treating an Economic
Partnership Agreement as the price to pay for aid, especially as the Pacific Islands’ share of European aid
is likely to fall as the European Union focuses its attention elsewhere.
So far there have been no proper social or environmental impact assessments of these proposals. Studies
to date have focused on economic or sectoral impacts, based on a presumption that free trade is good for
the Pacific, not on the social and developmental implications. No process has been established to undertake
such studies before negotiating proposals are put on the negotiating table - there are only plans to monitor
the effects at some time in the future.
The European Commission’s insistence that the Forum Island Secretariat is the main coordinating agency
for these negotiations has fostered distrust among individual Pacific Island States about the Forum’s agenda
and accusations of empire building. Meanwhile, Forum Secretariat staff are over-stretched and working to
a mandate that requires them to perform complex tasks to meet impossible time-lines.
Despite the unprecedented ‘openness’ provided for in Cotonou, a democratic deficit pervades every step
of the negotiating process. A handpicked Trade Experts Advisory Group, organised by the Forum Secretariat,
considers reports from selected consultants and provides advice to an inner circle of Ministers and senior
officials from the region. They report to national governments that have a twice-yearly opportunity for input.
Many governments operate the same way at the national level, organising and drawing selectively from
consultations with government-approved ‘non-State actors’, who respond to an agenda that is largely set
by the Forum Secretariat. ‘Non-State actors’ combines the pro-market private sector (including local
affiliates of foreign firms) with trade unions, social justice activists, environmentalists, consumer groups and
others, most of whom are critics of a market-driven ‘development’ model. There is no space for their critique
to be taken on board. Their participation risks legitimising an unacceptable set of negotiations; but there are
also signs that their challenges are prompting caution and second thoughts from some Pacific Islands
governments.
The Pacific negotiating strategy is designed to minimise the risk that it will trigger an obligation to negotiate a
comparable free trade agreement with Australia and NZ under the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic
Relations (PACER). Pacific Islands governments belatedly recognise that this could have a devastating
fiscal, economic, social and developmental impact. Creative attempts to convert this defensive strategy into
an opportunity, by asking the Europeans to fund a limited and focused development programme, seems
unduly optimistic. So is the expectation that European countries will pay for the Pacific Islands to ‘adjust’ to
global market policies when most of that cost would arise from PACER. Yet there is no obvious fall back
position.
Whatever the outcome, the Pacific Islands will face negotiations for a reciprocal free trade treaty with
Australia and New Zealand under PACER in 2011. There is a suggestion that the Islands should minimise
the damage and maximise their leverage by initiating these ahead of negotiations with the EU. This assumes
that a progressive development agenda is possible under PACER; but PACER embodies the same WTOcompatible
neoliberal ‘development’ model as Cotonou. Nor is it likely that Australia and NZ will abandon
the self-interest they displayed during the PACER negotiations. The only effective way for Pacific Island
governments to escape from PACER is to exercise their right to withdraw en masse. They should do the
same with PICTA and restart the regional integration process based on sound development principles.
Neoliberal globalisation – free trade – structural adjustment – is designed to serve the interests of rich and
powerful countries, companies and individuals. It seeks to impose a fundamentally unsound anti-development
model on the Pacific Islands. The peoples of the Pacific must have the space and opportunity to define their
own development agenda, as the Pacific Islands churches in Islands of Hope have called for.
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A People’s Guide To The Pacific’s Economic Partnership Agreement