Speech by Commissioner Lamy on NEPAD

Summary: October 9, 2002: Speech by EU Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, at the First forum for African parliamentarians in the framework of the New Partnership for Africa's Development - NEPAD (Cotonou)

From the outset the European Commission has supported the NEPAD initiative and its fundamental objective of promoting sustainable development on the African continent while taking on board the social, economic and environmental dimensions.

NEPAD is the operational arm of the African Union, the setting-up of which on the foundations of the Organization of African Unity has been welcomed by President Prodi,. The African Union is largely inspired by the European integration model.

The European Commission is fully committed to supporting the creation of a single African market, which will be a long and difficult process. The aim is to give Africans a chance to work together more, to strengthen comparative advantages across the board, and to build up and develop markets and open them up to the rest of the continent and rest of the world. As Member of the European Commission in charge of trade, I share a lot of responsibility for facilitating Africa's integration into the world economy and bolstering its participation in the multilateral trade negotiations.

Our support for the African Union and for NEPAD must be based on the aims set by Africans themselves. The international community widely welcomed the NEPAD initiative based on the principle that Africa should assume ownership of its development strategies. Of these strategies, regional integration is the centerpiece of the NEPAD action plan, emphasis being put on strengthening regional economic integration areas, improving the macroeconomic environment, stepping up integration, and developing regional trade. The strengthening of regional economic communities is a necessary stage in the creation of the African single market.

Our first form of support will be to help you to build up sub-regional markets on the basis of the regional economic communities designated in the context of NEPAD and the African Union.

Regional economic integration is a fundamental part of national development strategies because it smoothes the path to a gradual and harmonious integration into the world economy. The EU has the experience of its own integration, which is the world's most evolved form of an "ever closer Union" between sovereign states.

Europe is Africa's leading trading partner with bilateral trade of €144 billion in 2000, 45% of the African continent's foreign trade. EU-Africa trade is governed by the Cotonou Agreement, the Euro-Mediterranean partnership within the Barcelona process and the agreement with South Africa. These three agreements share the same objectives, greater regional integration between African countries, stronger economic and trade links with Europe and facilitation of Africa's progressive integration into the world economy.

These objectives are also those of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPEs) between the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the European Union, negotiation of which started on 27 September. These agreements, which will be in force on 1 January 2008, are above all development tools, instruments for building markets, and are designed to offer an appropriate and tangible response to the objectives of the African Union and NEPAD. The main aim is to build subregional markets in sub-Saharan Africa and to develop intra-regional trade, which is on average only 12% of individual countries' trade.

Linked to the regional integration initiatives, these new agreements will help to promote supply, diversify economies and consolidate the conditions for the emergence of local and regional markets with a view to the sustainable development of Africa.

There must therefore be a strong linkage between the NEPAD action plan, the African Union and the EPEs. A few words more on the APEs:

(i) South-South regional integration is the key. EPEs will be negotiated with regional economic communities. They will consolidate the harmonization of policies at regional level, build open regional markets and underpin the establishment of a stable and transparent economic environment. My objective will also be to ensure that the mechanisms of economic governance defined by the NEPAD are mirrored in these agreements and that the social and environmental dimensions necessary to the sustainable development of the continent are incorporated.
(ii) They will promote African trade. Access to the European market will be improved. Harmonization of negotiations at regional level is also needed in order to promote, in the longer term, the removal of barriers to trade between the various regional economic communities. In negotiating the EPEs, and also in the context of the Mediterranean agreements and the agreement with South Africa, we will ensure that any provisions agreed are completely consistent with the ultimate objective of creating a single market across the African continent.
(iii) They will promote Africa's integration into the world economy. Gradual liberalization in Africa will be accompanied by support measures to develop an environment favorable to the development of the private sector. The Commission and the regions of sub-Saharan Africa recently formulated regional development strategies which will be implemented from early next year.

Our second form of support is to ensure harmony between this stepped-up regional economic integration and the multilateral trade negotiations launched to Doha last November.

Africa's fuller integration into the world economy is dependent on the WTO negotiations on the Doha Development Agenda. The ministerial declaration named development as the driving principle of the whole negotiation.

To make a success of these negotiations, all must actively participate. I have thus undertaken to deliver as soon as possible the technical assistance needed to strengthen the capacity to formulate, adopt and negotiate a commercial policy which meets the needs of Africa; these needs obviously have to be identified by Africans themselves.

But actual requests for assistance need to be formulated more quickly. The strategy papers setting out the intervention areas of Community aid, which are drawn up with the African countries and regions concerned, should clearly and swiftly identify the needs for assistance with trade matters and with strengthening negotiating capacity, in line with the objectives of NEPAD and the African Union. The communication on trade and development adopted by the European Commission on 18 September set out a number of practical measures to help ensure that the developing countries benefit more from world trade. It provides a clear framework that should be used to make sure that trade is incorporated into aid strategies for the countries and regions of Africa.

To ensure the success of our aid for NEPAD and the African Union dialogue with all development actors is of crucial importance. I thus welcome the initiative taken by the Presidents of African parliaments in organising this first NEPAD forum. I invite the honourable members of parliament assembled here in Cotonou to set up networks for dialogue between groups of parliamentarians and Commission representatives so that they can check that we are working to achieve the objectives of NEPAD and those of the contractual agreements between Africa and Europe transparently and openly, taking account of the aspirations of the peoples they represent.

Ref: SP02-250EN
EU source: European Commission
UN forum: Other
Date: 9/10/2002

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