South Africa will continue engaging with the European Union to ensure new trade agreements with African countries do not harm regional integration, President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday.
Africa’s biggest economy has criticised the economic partnership agreements (EPA) designed to open up trade and has not signed a pact that has been accepted by other members of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland signed an interim agreement with the EU late last year but dominant SACU partner South Africa wants changes.
”It is clear to us that various provisions in the economic partnership agreements would work in an adverse manner … with regard to this process of regional integration,” said Mbeki in reply to a question in Parliament.
The 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) is working on plans for a regional free trade area while Africa as a whole has mooted closer economic ties.
”It is a matter that remains very much on the agenda, not for us only as a region but the continent as a whole,” he said.
”We want to pursue the decision … that there should be engagement to make sure that the economic partnership agreements don’t act as an obstacle to the achievement of the goal of regional integration on our continent and African unity.”
The EU has dismissed calls from some African leaders to re-think plans for new trade agreements with the nearly 80 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.
The EPAs replace Europe’s long-standing preferential trade arrangements with the ACP countries which are no longer protected by a World Trade Organisation waiver.
Mbeki met EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson on Saturday.
South Africa has rejected EU provisions in the EPA. This angered its partners in the SACU, which links the neighbours in a customs-sharing arrangement, although Namibia later pulled out of negotiations on services and investment issues. – Reuters