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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
Africa policy: Europe on the wrong track
World Investment Report 2005
Aid pledges for Africa to be monitored
Information summit to discuss control of internet
UN convention against corruption
Disappointing OECD guidelines
Bertelsmann Foundation rates progress
A new definition for the wealth of nations
Trade: disruptive chicken wings
IMF and World Bank endorse debt relief
Development and security: more cooperation needed
11/2005
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[ Africa policy ]
Europe on the wrong track
A large number of the world’s least developed countries and fragile states are situated in sub-Saharan Africa. Is the European Union (EU) devising a strategy to assist them in overcoming their problems? Despite some progress, the general outlook is bleak. In 1975, with the Lomé Convention, Europe promised former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP countries) aid and preferential access to the European market. Neither has helped Africa much, maintains Professor Cord Jakobeit from the University of Hamburg. Nonetheless, experts consider the agreement’s up-date of 2000 at Cotonou even worse, as became evident at a conference held by the Development and Peace Foundation (SEF) and the Federal Agency for Civic Education (BPB) in Bonn in September.
The EU no longer sees the ACP countries as a group and is negotiating instead with regional groups or individual countries. The EU aims for trade agreements (Economic Partnership Agreements, EPAs) based on the reciprocal (rather than the non-reciprocal) opening of markets. According to Henning Melber, director of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Brussels is pushing for opening trade barriers in Africa far beyond the steps agreed upon in the World Trade Organisation. Given the EU’s protectionist agricultural policy, Joy Ogwu, head of the Nigerian Institute for International Affairs, blames Europe of double standards.
No expert present in Bonn expected EPAs to help Africa. According to Jakobeit, free trade agreements only benefit poor countries that share a border with rich countries, that attract investment and that can accordingly increase exports. This is not the case for sub-Saharan Africa. The under-developed private sector and inadequate traffic infrastructure are considered greater obstacles to trade than tariffs. What is required, says Melber, is not free trade but rather a certain level of protection for domestic markets and support for the diversification of production. In his view, EPAs also do little to encourage regional integration in Africa, which is what the EU is hoping for, because EPAs promote orientation towards the world market instead of boosting regional markets. He also sees them undermining existing regional organisations because many African countries currently belong to several such associations, but have to settle for one for negotiating an Economic Partnership Agreement.
The conference recorded a certain amount of progress in EU crisis management ability – especially with regard to strengthening fragile states. Furthermore, Brussels is creating an instrument for military missions on the base of joint defence forces. According to Christian Manahl of the European Council’s Task Force Africa, the EU is considering to deploy these troops to support African Union (AU) missions in emergency situations, for example, in Sudan’s Darfur region. However, the priority is to strengthen Africa’s own crisis management capacity. Manahl denies that the EU was obsessed with military instruments. He says that impression stems from the field of action’s novelty, which attracts attention.
The EU’s military commitment, however, will remain limited because, as Ogwu notes, Africa is not of high priority for Europeans. Rather, they seem hardly interested. That is particularly so in the new member states, reported a Lithuanian member of parliament. Interest in Africa is greatest among the former colonial powers. These countries, however, tend to pursue their own agendas. According to Jakobeit, it is not only the foreign policy of member countries that is poorly coordinated in the EU. To him, policy on security or development seems equally disorganised. All summed up, one cannot really expect a coherent, homogenous EU policy on Africa. Nonetheless, it should be feasible to coordinate action better on a case-by-case basis.
Bernd Ludermann
On the internet:
http://www.itu.int/wsis/
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