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Published in JAPAN TIMES 22th December 2007
Article for The Japan Times
By David Howell
EU and Africa - A Flawed Relationship
LONDON – An acrimonious summit meeting between EU leaders and the leaders of
African countries ended a few days ago in Lisbon. The EU was trying to offer the
Africans a new trade deal, while the African representatives argued that the
deal would make them worse off, not better off, and denounced the European
efforts as a continuation of colonialism, which would ‘amputate’ African state
budgets and ruin African industries.
The atmosphere was further soured by the presence of the sinister Mr.Robert
Mugabe, who has brought his own nation of Zimbabwe to its knees in a frenzy of
repression – a living symbol of human rights abuse who ought never to have been
invited to the gathering. The British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, stayed away
from the whole event in protest.
It was not meant to be like this. The declared intention of the European Union
policy-makers in Brussels was to wash away all post-colonial guilt, forge a new
strategic partnership and open a new development chapter for the peoples of
seventy-six former European colonies , forty of them former British colonies and
the others mostly part of the Francophone group .
The central idea was to offer these countries a continuation and improvement of
the preferential tariffs on their exports into the European Union states, which
they have enjoyed for more than forty years, but in return to require the
African economies to cut their tariffs on the import of European goods. The new
deals were to be presented as so-called Economic Partnership Agreements.
This prospect is the one which stuck in African throats. They did not see the
concept as one of partnership at all, and ten of them refused point blank to
sign up to them, including such ,major participants as South Africa, Nigeria,
Zambia and Senegal. For them it was tantamount to exposing all their infant
industries to fierce European competition and, in the words of one leader,
‘slamming the door on development’. The poorer countries of Africa, they
insisted, with their weak and fledgling economies, need more protection, not
less. They also claimed that the EPAs would damage African trade with Pacific
countries.
Behind the European approach was a deeper fear – namely that Europe is losing
its influence on the African continent to the Chinese. The Chinese are indeed
everywhere in Africa these days, with ready cash with no strings attached, with
‘sweet’ and easy agreements to provide infrastructure, as well as weapons and
military support. Their products are also highly competitive with European
goods. As one delegate put it ‘With the price of one European car you can buy
two Chinese cars’.
Why has the European approach been so clumsy/
At root there are two major flaws in the EU policy. The first is to push the
theory of absolutely free trade too far and too fast and to ignore the practical
realities of development in very impoverished economies. A belief lingers in
official minds in Europe that all protection in any circumstances is bad and
must be swept aside. Inequalities in trade relations, they appear to believe,
can be compensated for by large aid packages .
This completely overlooks the fact that much of Europe’s own industry grew under
cover of protective tariffs and that without a certain amount of well-focussed
tariff protection the infant industries in Africa’s struggling economies will
just never take off. It also overlooks the glaring fact that most of Europe’s
agriculture is still protected by high tariff, subsidy and quota walls.
The second and much deeper fallacy is that Africa is a bloc or that Europe is a
bloc, and that by putting the two together, face to face, trade and development
solutions can be found.
Not only is the geographical continent of Africa a conglomeration of vastly
diverse societies and cultures, each with their own unique problems and
requiring their own understanding and solutions. But on the European side
interests vary and a real unity of approach is lacking .
The proposition that if the EU countries all stick together they will always
carry greater weight in trade negotiations – with America, China, Japan or
anybody else – sounds superficially true but in practice , and in the modern
global context, it could well be that bilateral negotiations and bargains – say
between the UK and Nigeria, or France and Senegal, or Germany and South Africa –
could create more business opportunities and generate more growth than mighty
deals between the whole of Europe and the whole of Africa –which anyway are
proving impossible to achieve except in watered down and general terms which
have little impact of Africa’s starving millions.
The one area where a united European approach might really help African states
is in promoting techniques of just and good governance and in standing up
strongly for human rights at every opportunity. That would at least help
distinguish European engagement from the Chinese involvement, which hitherto has
shown itself to be somewhat blind to human rights matters and to the records of
regimes being assisted and supported.
But by allowing Mugabe to come to the Lisbon table the Portugese Government, who
were acting as hosts in their presidency role of the EU (shortly to pass to
Austria) , made a colossal error of judgment . They have sent the clear signal
that even in this vital area the EU, while it may talk of putting human rights
at the top of the agenda, in practice has no principled position and is ready to
hob-nob with dictators and men of darkness . The misplaced ambition to show that
the EU is a big shot and has a central place on the world stage has pushed aside
commonsense and practical measures.
And that is a tragedy both for Africa and for Europe.
Ends
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