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Dateline
Kinshasa – The annual EU-ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly kicks off in the
Congolese capital this week against a background of challenging developments in
international relations. Prominent on the agenda are issues such as climate
change, governance and democracy, post-conflict reconstruction in war-torn
countries, and immigration and religious toleration in the New Europe.

The
partnership between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP) Group of States has long been regarded as a model for North-South
cooperation. In spite of all the rhetoric of interdependence and equality, no
one can be in doubt that Europe calls the final shots by sheer virtue of its
control over the purse strings – some €23 billion under the 10th European
Development Fund (EDF).

Africa in particular can lay claim to having
several friends in the EU Parliament, but be that as it may, there are growing
concerns within ACP circles that the EU may be turning its back on an age-old
relationship. With its new overtures towards Latin America and the new
priorities being given to the so-called “European neighbourhood” – Eastern
Europe and North Africa – there are legitimate fears that Europe may be
disengaging itself from its traditional partnership that goes as far back as
the Rome Treaty 1957 that saw the creation of the Common Market with an associated
status for the erstwhile colonial dependencies.

Former
U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger once remarked that if he needed to talk
to the Kremlin he always knew precisely who to call; ditto for Beijing and
Tokyo. He lamented that, for Europe, you never could know who to call.

With the
coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December 2009 the Kissingers of this
world no longer have to worry. Under the new treaty Europe is to reform its
internal architecture so as to have coherence and more effectiveness on the
international arena. Under the new plan, the EU now has a High Representative
of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in the person of Catherine
Ashton of the United Kingdom. She effectively combines the role of foreign as
well as defence minister and would have a new corps of foreign service
personnel at her disposal.

Well and
good for Europe. The problem for the ACP is that for the first time in its long
years of evolution, Europe has a constitutive legal document that makes no express
reference to the EU-ACP partnership. It is also not clear if the ACP can be
entitled to a predictable envelope of financial resources as had been the case
hitherto. This is a major concern to several African countries whose annual
budgets depend on significant contributions from foreign donors, notable among
them Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Mozambique.

The simple
truth is that the EU remains the largest donor in the world – well ahead of the
USA, Japan, China and the World Bank. What Europe does or fails to do will have
major implications for the life-chances of so many on our continent.

There is
also the question of the ongoing negotiations on Economic Partnership
Agreements (EPAs). For more than three decades the ACP enjoyed concessional
trading terms with the EU, with duty-free access for most of the imports from
the poorest countries. Such arrangements, we are told, are no longer compatible
with current WTO international trading rules.

The EPAs
being negotiated between Europe and the regional economic communities of the
ACP are supposed to replace the erstwhile trading arrangements that had been
put in place over decades of painstaking multilateral negotiations. While the
Caribbean has made significant progress in reaching an agreement with the EU,
much of Africa and the Pacific are yet to make any major progress. I am told
that our own ECOWAS is expected to reach an agreement by year’s end 2010, all
things being equal.

Former EU
Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, one of the architects of Britain’s New
Labour, never endeared himself by what appeared to be a bullying approach to
the EPA negotiations. The Europeans seem
unmoved by the concerns of some of the poorest countries that wholesale trade
liberalisation would wipe out local industries while poor peasant farmers will
suffer devastating income losses as they try to compete with over-subsidized
European farm products. Under the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU commits
over 30 percent of its budget to farm subsidies (amounting to €43.8 billion in
2010).

It is my
first time ever in Kinshasa. I find it to be a lovely city, although the signs
of its manifold traumas are everywhere to be seen. During the course of this
week, parliamentarians from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific will jaw-jaw
about all the aforesaid issues. But it is doubtful if any of this will shift
Europe’s fundamental position in any way. We would not need a magic lantern to
peer through the fog of doublespeak and obfuscation.

The
handwriting on the wall is clear: we live in a world where national interests
ultimately prevail; where there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies.
Anyone who approaches international economic diplomacy with the bowl of
mendicancy and nothing else besides, would make of himself a lone voice crying
in the wilderness.