As Europe's trade negotiations with the developing world reach a final and decisive phase, church leaders press EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson to put the needs of the poor first.

Catholic and Protestant church leaders from Africa and Europe have joined together to urge the European Union Trade Commissioner to make major changes in the way that the EU is conducting trade negotiations with Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP).

These negotiations aim to create sweeping free trade agreements, known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

CAFOD, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development warns, however, that EPAs would pitch poor farmers in ACP countries into direct competition with heavily subsidised European agri-business, threatening the livelihoods of 750 million of the world's poorest people.

A joint appeal has been launched by the Catholic and Protestant networks CIDSE and APRODEV expressing the Churches' unhappiness at the behaviour of European trade negotiators and the current state of negotiations.

"The economy should be at the service of the people, and not the other way round," the appeal says.

"The EU and the ACP have a unique opportunity to show leadership and establish bilateral trade relations which are building blocks for a more just and equitable trading system."

Pressure continues to grow on Mandelson to make significant concessions, whilst negotiations become more and more precarious due to the hard line behaviour of European negotiators and the increasing frustration of ACP countries.

Europe is insisting that African countries negotiate issues that they have long resisted at the WTO and also make far reaching commitments to liberalise their economies over the next ten years.

African countries have until the end of 2007 to conclude negotiations - when the European Union is threatening to impose high tariffs on existing African exports such as Kenyan green beans and Botswanan beef, effectively cutting off from Africa its largest and most valuable market and causing great economic damage.

Unhappiness at the position of the European Commission is becoming very widespread - including among ACP negotiators, European parliamentarians and European member states.

At the end of June, the co-president of the EU-ACP Parliamentary Assembly, René Radembino-Coniquet, warned that "ACP countries are legitimately concerned about the probable risks of economic meltdown which will not be helped by the premature opening of markets".

The African Union (AU) expressed "deep concern" at its recent summit in Accra about the impact of EPAs on African economies.

The AU called on the European Commission to reflect in its negotiating positions the commitment of EU member states "to make EPAs instruments of development".

CAFOD campaigners have helped give the issue a greater profile, particularly in relation to the UK government.

CAFOD also urged Douglas Alexander, the newly appointed Secretary of State for International Development, to "bring back the drive that led him to call for reform of EPAs during the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005".






[Source: CAFOD]