Botswana leads fractured SADC EPA negotiating team

As the December deadline draws nearer, Botswana is leading the SADC team at the on-going trade negotiations between the European Union and ACP countries on Economic Partnership Agreements in Brussels, the Acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Trade and Industry Gaylard Kombani says.

But the SADC bloc Botswana is leading is made up of only eight - Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, Tanzania , South Africa and Botswana itself - of the 15-member bloc.

Other members of SADC are negotiating under COMESA, while the islands states of Mauritius, the Seychelles and Madagascar also have their own negotiating bloc, the Pacific.

Some of the countries with Botswana are classified as Least Developing Countries (LDCs). These are Lesotho, Angola, Mozambique and Tanzania, which do not have the same challenges as Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, and South Africa, which are characterised as developing countries.

Botswana is under pressure to strike a new trade agreement with Europe to ensure that its beef, which enjoys preferential treatment under the Cotonou Agreement, continues to benefit beyond the December 31 deadline, failing which it will have to compete with South American beef.

Responding to a questionnaire this week, the Ministry of Trade and Industry said the LDCs trade with the EU under the Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative, which accords their products duty-free and quota-free access into the EU market.

South Africa has a bilateral agreement [the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA)] with the EU.

"This means that if the negotiations are not concluded by 31st December 2007, the LDCs and South Africa will continue trading with the EU under the EBA initiative and the TDCA respectively," says the Ministry. "The three countries (Botswana, Swaziland and Namibia) will have no fallback position and will lose the preferential market access they currently enjoy under the Cotonou Agreement."

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Link