The focus of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) and the European Union (EU) remains for economic development, sustained regional integration and the reduction and eventual eradication of poverty, says the President of the ECOWAS Commission Mr James Victor Gbeho.
Mr Gbeho, who reiterated this at a sensitization workshop for the members of the ECOWAS Parliament in Accra on Tuesday, said it had become necessary to counteract the embarrassing negative campaigns directed at the EPA negotiations in the media and across the territories of strategic stakeholders of the West African sub region.
“It is therefore important to give a truly balanced view and to present regional perspectives in order to correct the claims of negotiation partners in the international media as far as the EPA is concerned,” he said at the workshop, aimed at engaging the various communities in the West African region, including members of the ECOWAS Parliament, representatives of member state assemblies and other stakeholders.
Mr Gbeho said the workshop, was in the interest of the demands for transparency and accountability and it was necessary to maximize the moral and psychological advantages in the face of the difficulties involved in negotiating with ECOWAS partners in the EU.
“Our new regional concepts of transparency and accountability demand in the circumstance that we inform and explain to you what we have done so far and are contemplating in carrying out the directives of our leaders,” he said adding that failure in the past to interact with constituents had only given free view to misinformation, misinterpretation and misreporting on the useful and vital service that ECOWAS was performing on the behalf of the West African region.
Mr Gbeho said in view of this, the ECOWAS and the EU have been working assiduously to consider in totality the issues of importance to the stakeholders against the background of the emerging global situation.
He therefore charged the participants to deliberate more on the issues of market access, the draft text of the agreement and the EPA development programme which involve both technical and political considerations, adding that “even when experts reach an agreement with their interlocutors on the technical details of these issues, the political aspects have always to be also agreed upon.”
Speaking to the Times, Mr Stephen Balado Manu, Member of the ECOWAS parliament from Ghana said it was very important for the negotiators to know which aspect of the proposal from the EU they accepted.
He said the workshop was the right time for participants to express their thoughts on which part of the proposal was not beneficial to the West African community.
Mr Manu who is the MP for Ahafo-Ano Constituency in the Ashanti region, said one aspect of the EPA which was not favourable to the West African market was the hundred percent made-in-West Africa policy which stated that before a commodity could enter the EU market, all materials used in the production of the commodity should have been from West Africa.
“Should the negotiators accept this policy, we would be at the losing side since most of the equipment and raw materials used in the manufacturing of our commodity are imported.”
Another aspect of the EPA, which had to be considered, according to Mr Manu was the removal of levies on commodities that were imported from the EU into West Africa.
He said most of the countries in ECOWAS depended on the income obtained from charges placed on imported goods.
Therefore, if that agreement was accepted, member states would be forced to go and beg for loans from developed countries all the time since they could not survive on their own.
Mr Gbeho, who reiterated this at a sensitization workshop for the members of the ECOWAS Parliament in Accra on Tuesday, said it had become necessary to counteract the embarrassing negative campaigns directed at the EPA negotiations in the media and across the territories of strategic stakeholders of the West African sub region.
“It is therefore important to give a truly balanced view and to present regional perspectives in order to correct the claims of negotiation partners in the international media as far as the EPA is concerned,” he said at the workshop, aimed at engaging the various communities in the West African region, including members of the ECOWAS Parliament, representatives of member state assemblies and other stakeholders.
Mr Gbeho said the workshop, was in the interest of the demands for transparency and accountability and it was necessary to maximize the moral and psychological advantages in the face of the difficulties involved in negotiating with ECOWAS partners in the EU.
“Our new regional concepts of transparency and accountability demand in the circumstance that we inform and explain to you what we have done so far and are contemplating in carrying out the directives of our leaders,” he said adding that failure in the past to interact with constituents had only given free view to misinformation, misinterpretation and misreporting on the useful and vital service that ECOWAS was performing on the behalf of the West African region.
Mr Gbeho said in view of this, the ECOWAS and the EU have been working assiduously to consider in totality the issues of importance to the stakeholders against the background of the emerging global situation.
He therefore charged the participants to deliberate more on the issues of market access, the draft text of the agreement and the EPA development programme which involve both technical and political considerations, adding that “even when experts reach an agreement with their interlocutors on the technical details of these issues, the political aspects have always to be also agreed upon.”
Speaking to the Times, Mr Stephen Balado Manu, Member of the ECOWAS parliament from Ghana said it was very important for the negotiators to know which aspect of the proposal from the EU they accepted.
He said the workshop was the right time for participants to express their thoughts on which part of the proposal was not beneficial to the West African community.
Mr Manu who is the MP for Ahafo-Ano Constituency in the Ashanti region, said one aspect of the EPA which was not favourable to the West African market was the hundred percent made-in-West Africa policy which stated that before a commodity could enter the EU market, all materials used in the production of the commodity should have been from West Africa.
“Should the negotiators accept this policy, we would be at the losing side since most of the equipment and raw materials used in the manufacturing of our commodity are imported.”
Another aspect of the EPA, which had to be considered, according to Mr Manu was the removal of levies on commodities that were imported from the EU into West Africa.
He said most of the countries in ECOWAS depended on the income obtained from charges placed on imported goods.
Therefore, if that agreement was accepted, member states would be forced to go and beg for loans from developed countries all the time since they could not survive on their own.
