EPAs to Top Agenda on Final Day of 6 ACP Summit

I think it might be stretching it a bit to think that expectations might be raised. Currently sitting at the press centre, waiting for the press conference of the Ivorian minister on the EPAs. Should draw quite a crowd. Two of my colleagues are here, waiting to filter the technical aspects of the EPAs through the lens of the minister's utterances, I am sure. Or is that the other way round?

The picture shows a snapshot of the entrance of the doorway to the plenary meeting, which has been closed session since yesterday. The guys inside have special badges, " CLOSED SESSION". Even Dr.DICK Naezer(sp)of the EU delegation here in Accra was


stopped by security, as he went along with his colleague.

My colleague and I speculated that he will most likely bulldoze his way through the meeting this morning, which is supposed to be on FUTURE OF THE ACP GROUP.

The guy to the left of the picture is a journalist who is based in Abidjan. Don't know his name. All I know is the anecdotal information of EU Development Minister Louis Michel having had his stomach stapled, giving him the slimmer appearance, and how "despicable" a character he is. I always knew that;-) The lady to the right is a Balgian journalist who was keen to get a background of the guy on the left. I swear I was not eavesdropping. Being so close as I am, any information is great, dontcha think?

It's 10h17. Press conference ought to start soon! Before I go, let me show you a snapshot of the edition of Graphic Business of this past Tuesday:



It might all be about the money, but it's certainly all about the EPAs now!!

Bank of the South is Here, But Can Africa Bank on the Latin American Way of Regional Integration?

The new multilateral institution is considered as an alternative to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and seeks to satisfy development credits demand.

Seriously, it's more than an alternative; it's also yet another expression of Venezuela and its associate MERCOSUR members of their dissatisfaction with the prevalent neoliberal system.

I've written about this Bank of the South before and I explained that the Latin Americans had something that Africans certainly didn't. Beyond blood running through their veins, it's about a radicalism and conviction so unprecedented and emanating that any of their opponents feel it viscerally that these are people not to be toyed with.

If not, how is it that despite the articulations of Venezuela against the mighty US, Venezuela has -- along with Brazil; Argentina; Bolivia; Ecuador and Paraguay -- establish this Bank of the South [I notice no Uruguay!!]. Yet, Africans have allowed themselves to be fragmented on the so-called Economic Partnership Agreements?

The fallout of the signing of a so-called EPA-lite by the East African Community and SADC (without South Africa and Namibia) just leaves one speechless--not to mention a little bit less for wear the arduous efforts of civil society -- both in the North and the South.

That said, it's important to press on to stop the discussions between the bullying EU and the other regions.

In my view, the Bank of the South initiative, a formidable alternative indeed to the Breton Woods institutions of the World Bank and IMF in the sense that "each member country would have a single vote, irrespective of size and financial contribution" (from:http://www.nationnews.com/290175804330225.php) brings into sharp relief the necessity for greater collaboration between MERCOSUR in general/Latin America specifically and other AU regionalisms to learn lessons on how they were able to resist the Free Trade Area of the Pacific in 2005, yet AU/ACP countries allowed fragmentation by the EU.

While this issue of the Bank of the South, in my view, is one of the most progressive developments in global regional integration to date--bar the ASEAN charter-- Africans ought to contemporaneously reflect on whether there is that much of a difference between the EU and the US, for them to have allowed the EU--former colonisers at that--to hoodwink many of them into an interim agreement that will most likely destroy attempts at regional integration.

Whither the European Union? Free-Trader, Egalitarian...or Hypocrite?

The EU is going places--or at least that's what the EU would like its citizens to think. That is, judging by an opinion piece by a lawyer who now works in the financial services.

She (I presume) writes an interesting piece about the EU, and looks at the following issues:

Withdrawing from the EU will put businesses in disadvantageous positions in Europe

Inconvenience caused to tourists and migrants

Withdrawal will distort the market

Member states should not enjoy benefits of the EU without facing drawbacks

We know the writer is a free-trader--and there's nothing wrong with that if that's what gets your kicks--because of the manner in which she castigates the attempt by the EU to assume an "egalitarian" EU predicated on a single market. She writes:

With the egalitarian ideology at its core, the EU is heading in a direction that is opposite its original destination. The aim of the EU officials is to create a collective block and to build a high fortress around it. That block will hamper the growth of Europe. Instead of truly fostering free trade, EU regulations and directives hold back those who endeavor to progress; indeed such efforts are frowned upon.

This is so ironic it's not funny. If you look at the steely attempts by the European Union and its arm-twisting of countries of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States to comply with its version of regional integration à l'Africaine, you could arrive at the conclusion that the EU is ferociously free-trade.

If you look at attempts by civil society organisations setting up websites, such as EPA Watch; specifically to monitor the obfuscatory tactics deployed by the EU in its relations with African countries, you begin to wonder whether a little hypocrisy is in the offing.

So when the writer finally writes:

It is one thing to devise policies founded on egalitarianism but quite another to implement them as if they are based on the ideas of free exchange.
from:http://www.mises.org/story/2536

I begin to ask myself is it not time to question what the EU does and says in theory, and practice?

Or is the EU pulling a very fast one on some of us?