RESUMPTION OF EPA TALKS A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT
What you need to know:
- According to a February 9 statement by the Directorate of Presidential Communications in Dar es Salaam – President Hassan was also scheduled to “witness” the signing of agreements between the governments of France and Tanzania on the latter’s development projects “and cooperation in the blue economy.”
On February 9 this year, President Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania embarked upon a working tour of Europe, whose results are already capturing headlines for their positive potential outcomes. President Hassan visited France and Belgium, two of the 27 members of the European Union (EU). While in France, the President attended the three-day One-Ocean Summit in the city of Brest.
The summit brought together – under the chairmanship of France President Emmanuel Macron – “a small but determined group of Heads of State and Government, leaders of multilateral institutions, business leaders and civil society policymakers to make ambitious commitments aimed at taking actions against threats to the world’s oceans”.
Noting that the oceans together cover more than 70 percent of Planet Earth’s surface, the One Ocean Summit organisers lamented that (the Oceans) “too often remain on the sidelines of major European and international events”. Hence the Brest Summit.
According to a February 9 statement by the Directorate of Presidential Communications in Dar es Salaam – President Hassan was also scheduled to “witness” the signing of agreements between the governments of France and Tanzania on the latter’s development projects “and cooperation in the blue economy.”
In that regard, it was expected that “several important initiatives would be launched in favour of marine ecosystem protection and sustainable fisheries intended to fight pollution – in particular from plastics – in responding to the impacts of climate change, while advocating improved governance of the oceans”.
Economic Partnership Agreements
Equally impressive is the fact that President Hassan took the opportunity of her European tour to “revive” the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) on “free trade” between the EU and the ACP nations.
The originals EPAs were based on the June 2000 Cotonou (Benin) Agreement between 78 ACP countries and the 15 EU member countries of the time – with the principal aim of “poverty reduction through aid to Africa”.
But, despite being revised in 2005 and 2010, the EPAs were still considered as being contrary to the World Trade Organisation’s principles and objectives. Also, the “aid to Africa from the ninth European Development Fund (9th EDF) had very limited impact on the majority of the ACP poor”.
Under the circumstances, it was decided to update and otherwise improve the EPAs. But, although the re-negotiations were completed in 2014 – and the new EPAs were to be signed-cum-ratified in 2016 – that is yet to happen.
So, to liven things up, President Hassan told the President of the European Council in Belgium, Mr Charles Michel, “We are ready to host a bilateral meeting in our beautiful city of Dar es Salaam in the first week of March 2022 to clarify and agree on the remaining contentious issues under the EU/EAC Economic Partnership Agreements”.
Tanzania had reservations regarding the earlier EPAs, as they had the potential to outdo domestic products at the resulting highly-competitive market.
But, if the proposed March negotiations in Dar are to prove beneficial to Tanzanians, we should praise President Hassan for chalking up yet another developmental milestone so early in her presidency.
