Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The idea that this is a win-win, mutually beneficial agreement is an absolute joke. It is clear that the European Union will gain vastly more than African nations from the economic partnership agreements and that it will do so at the expense of living standards of African people. The agreements are nothing more than a dressed-up, modern-day version of the colonialism in which many EU countries were involved in Africa.

In the past, African governments could impose tariffs on goods sold by European Union countries. The EPA allows Europe to sell products in west African countries without having to pay anything, which means African countries cannot compete. Meanwhile, Europe can import all of the great goods Africa has to offer without paying any duty. It can take African raw materials, turn them into other products and sell them back to Africa at a cheaper price. As a famous Ghanaian proverb goes, "It is the fool whose own tomatoes are sold to him." That is the reality of this process.

The economic partnership agreements are based on indiscriminate trade liberalisation that refuses to take into account the special needs of a particular country's economy. The World Trade Organization was supposed to provide for this. The European Union promised the WTO that it would not force poor countries to fully open their markets but produced this mechanism instead. Its approach has been reprehensible because the EPAs remove the limited protection available for local markets and will undoubtedly result in losses for manufacturing in African countries. Trade trends indicate that the growth in the market for manufactured products in Africa has been in other African countries. If west Africa is to move away from primary commodity dependency and become a manufacturing hub, the African market will be its best option. However, west African markets are at risk of being taken over by the European Union as a result of these agreements.

The EPAs infringe on the sovereignty of west African nations and are most definitely not in their economic interests. They will not be of any benefit to them, whereas the super-profits of the companies that are determined to exploit these countries will be boosted.

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