New delay in EU trade deal

Johannesburg - Negotiations between member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU) on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) could be delayed till next year because of an election in the region.

Xavier Carim, Deputy Director General of Trade & Industry, this week said at a Johannesburg seminar that a meeting with the EU had been provisionally set for the third week in November, but that the date appeared to be "difficult".

SADC members are provisionally meeting on November 13 to discuss the EPAs - which are causing considerable controversy. The EU has for years been negotiating the EPAs with its old colonies and these agreements had been expected to be in place by the end of 2007.

Angola, Mozambique and the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), consisting of South Africa and Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland, negotiate with the EU in the same SADC group.

South Africa, Namibia and Angola are refusing to sign an interim EPA with the EU.

Carim says South Africa, which already has a separate trade agreement with the EU, will continue participating in the EPA negotiations, but that there are aspects of the interim EPA to which the country simply cannot agree.

The decision by certain Sacu member states to support the interim EPA earlier this year caused considerable consternation within Sacu, and placed the continued existence of the customs union under huge pressure. Carim says there is now a better understanding that members should stand together and that Sacu countries "should increasingly adopt a common position regarding the EPA".

"The EU also has a better understanding of our problems and there is a willingness to have a thorough look at issues in the EPA that are causing divisions within Sacu," he said.

With an election in Namibia at the end of November it looks unlikely that another meeting with the EU will take place before the end of this year.

- Sake24.com

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