At a workshop held at Entebbe from 15-16 October 2007, members of East African Legislative Assembly, and national parliaments in East African countries reiterated that EPAs processes and outcomes should serve to foster sustainable human development, regional integration in the East African sub-region. They expressed their dismay that our governments are under pressure to conclude negotiations by 31st December 2007. In spite of significant divergences on substantive issues.

They called for an extension of December deadline and for interim measures pending the conclusion of EPA negotiations to safeguard any disruption of trade. Here below is the full text of the statement.

Preamble:
We the undersigned members of East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) and National Parliaments in East African countries, met at Entebbe, Uganda from 15-16 October 2007, to deliberate on the status of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations and their implications on peoples’ socio-economic interests and rights. We, as peoples’ representatives, reiterate that EPAs processes and outcomes should serve to foster sustainable human development, regional integration and economic growth in the East African sub-region.

We take cognisance of the laudable efforts by our governments in the on-going EPA negotiations. These efforts not withstanding, the EPA negotiations remain an exclusive and therefore non-transparent process for a majority of the people we represent.

Significant issues:
We note with dismay that our governments are under undue pressure to conclude EPA negotiations by December 31, 2007 in spite of significant divergence on substantive issues which include the following:

- The scope of liberalization: Lack of consensus on the extent of liberalization in respect to products, tariffs and sectors;

- High adjustment costs: Lack of consensus on additional resources to address domestic competitiveness through improved technology, infrastructure and value addition. For instance, the Commonwealth Secretariat has estimated the cost of financing fiscal adjustment programmes in sub-Saharan Africa at € 239 million per year a period of ten years;

- Legal status of the development matrix: The exclusion of the development agenda from the substantive and legally binding text of the EPA agreement;

- Trade-related issues: The EU insistence on negotiating binding rules on
Government Procurement, Intellectual Property Rights and Competition Policy pose a threat to government’s ability to freely determine national and sub-regional development policies;

- Rules of Origin: Restrictive rules for sourcing inputs limit our ability to undertake value addition without concurrently narrowing our market access;

- Exclusion of Negotiating EU Agricultural Subsidies: The exclusion of EU agricultural subsidies from the EPA negotiations will continue to perpetuate unfair competition in the EU markets and dumping of EU subsidized agricultural products in our domestic markets.

We Remain Concerned that:
- There has been limited interface between the negotiators on one part and EALA and national parliaments on the other part, regarding the likely impact of EPAs thus negating our cardinal duties of representation, legislation and oversight.

- The current EPAs negotiating configurations, which overlap and cut across the existing regional economic blocs, will undermine the economic and political integration process for East African Community.

- EPAs are likely to erode government revenue thereby undermining the ability of governments to finance basic socio-economic services such as education, health and infrastructure; owing to the fact that the proposed EPAs ignore the intrinsic relationship between poverty, human development and trade liberalization. For instance, the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) estimates that sub-Saharan governments will lose € 1.516 billion per year in tariff revenues through the full implementation of the kind of EPAs envisaged by the EU.

There has been inadequate participation and consultation of stakeholders which brings into question the ownership and legitimacy of both the process and the eventual outcomes.

Bearing in mind the core objectives and the need to take into account the Cotonou Agreement which are to ensure: - smooth integration into the global economy, sustainable development and poverty eradication; - that any successive trade arrangements should not leave any country economically worse off than the current arrangement.

We therefore call for;
Extension of the December 31st deadline in order to address the aforementioned issues and concerns.

Interim measures, pending conclusion of EPA negotiations, to safeguard against any disruption in trade.

An expeditious enactment of the East Africa Community Joint Trade Negotiations Bill into law to ensure that the EAC partner states negotiate as a bloc.