 We will now start the webinar. I believe most participants have joined the meeting. Will, let me start by welcoming you on behalf of the Inter-Committee Report on EU-African Trade and Investment Relations. This workshop is available in English and in French and if you wish to choose a language please use the world icon. On the Inter-Committee Report on the Trade and Investment Relations between Africa and the European Union, we have English and French translation. You can switch the language just by pushing the little globe symbol on your Zoom screen. My name is Arif Rusgar. I work for the Brussels Office of the Rosa Luxembourg Foundation. For those of you who are not aware of what Rosa Luxembourg Foundation is, it is a foundation, a political foundation close to the political party called Die Linke. It's a German organization. Our office in Brussels is working on internal and external issues relating to European policy and in this respect we also work on trade and investment relations and we've already done a great deal of work concerning trade and investment relations between the EU and the African continent including in the framework of the EU-ACP partnership agreement. There has been some criticism regarding those partnerships or these agreements regarding the ideology of free trade ideology and other issues. I'd like to welcome you on what is the second part of a series of workshops. This time we are going to focus on the relationship between the European Union and West Africa and this is certainly going to be very interesting because some important developments have taken place in West Africa recently. There has been a coup, a coup in Mali in Guinea and also in Burkina Faso lately and within this framework it will certainly be very interesting to hear what ECOWAS thinks about this and what is the impact of these events on the relations between the EU and West Africa. Of course we will also take into consideration the historic relations which existed from the colonial time. We have a unitary money currency the French CFA franc in part of West Africa and I'd like to insist on closing the meeting at a very very sharply at 1930 because this evening at 8 p.m. we have a football game between Senegal and Burkina Faso. It's the semifinal of the African Nations Cup Football Cup and I'm quite certain that participants from West Africa would like to watch the game and therefore we certainly need to finish our meeting in good time. I'd like to thank you all for being here and I would now like to give the floor to the monitor the moderator of this meeting. The moderator is MEP Mr. Helmut Schultz who is also member of the Intercommittee of the European Parliament and he is actually in charge of the report which I've mentioned earlier on the EU-Africa trade and investment relations. Thank you very much Helmut Schultz you have the floor. Thank you very much Florian Horn for the introductory mark and for the opening of this very challenging and interesting webinar. I'm really glad to have distinguished guests with me in this round of discussing aspects of the how to say it West African developments and not to add additional remarks to that what Florian already introduced I will explain a little bit the aim of this webinar. The International Trade Committee has on behalf of the European Parliament taken the responsibility to work on an initiative report marking the perspectives of the trade and investment relations between the EU and Africa after it has adopted already its own report on the Africa agenda 2020 and ahead of accompanying the forthcoming EU-Africa summit in just two and a half weeks in Paris which is happening in a very challenging time because we as international trades have said we take knowledge about the efforts of various African countries of the African Union to to push forward an own economic agenda for the whole continent by creating the AFC-FTA so a comprehensive customs union a comprehensive trade and economic cooperation area which is of course giving us a lot of stuff to thinking about in which ways this will affect the different regions there's a regional cooperation like ECOVAS like the eastern African community like the SADC in the southern part of Africa so I mean this is of course a new stage and of course we have knowledge about different experience in shaping the relations between the European Union and Africa but Africa is probably the continent of the future and there will be within 20 years a huge growth of the inhabitants in your countries in the regions of Africa and that will raise even more challenges in probably also social political economic cultural aspects and challenges to us so we are working on this straight report on report dealing also with investments and knowing that there is foreseen for the Paris summit EU Africa summit an agreement on huge investments a huge package on economic developments we want to listen to different stakeholders being it from the business sector being it from the ECOVAS structure being it from the civil society and the civil society organized NGOs seen through reunions what do you expect what are your problems what are your visions and therefore we call the series of webinars having started last week with East Africa today with West Africa coming to South and North Africa under the title in a listening mood so I don't want to speak a lot about our approach I have invited my colleague Vice President of the European Parliament Pedro Silva Pereira to be with us he is much more than me familiar with the developments in Western Africa because he is also the permanent and standing rapporteur on the ECOVAS so in this way it is really a really a pleasure for me and he will give them the comments from the European side but first I want to give the floor to our guests from Western Africa I can also inform you that we have the permanent rapporteur for the SUDEC with us and Joachim Schuster and we have the former Interchair listening to us who's already retired here from the European Parliament and active responsibilities but Dr. Hemut Markov is also with us and listens to us so a quite good issue and of course I'm happy that a lot of other followers for our seminar are with us so I would ask in the beginning there is one cross-cutting question probably what evolution in trade and investment relations is needed to achieve the sustainable development goals how do these changes relate to the achievement of the foreseeing implementation or bringing in into move of the African comprehensive trade trade area and I would like in the beginning to give the floor to Dr. Ken Okowo from the National Association of Nigerian Traders and ask him how do you develop trade and investment relations between you and Africa for the benefit of the people in West Africa so for 10 minutes Dr. Okowo the floor is yours. Thank you very much Sures I want to start by shading this very privileged to be part of this process and this discourse I will not take it for granted thank you so much for that also you know commenting the vision you know behind the idea behind this concept and the team really resonates my ears so soundly so strongly you know listening mode that speaks volume listening mood it tells me that a new thing is common in place it tells me that hit or two there may have not been enough listening but now there are ears to listen to the cries of Africa it really tells me quite a lot that there is preparedness for the two for the parts to come to the table and then look at what can be done to structurally bring about development and the win-win kind of framework between the two parties having said this I'm just hoping that the results will be you know seen as a commendable listening outcome and one of the reasons I must say for the failure of past approaches or if you like what performance of past approaches in terms of trade and investment between the two parties the EU on one side and the Africa on the other side is permit me what I would say I'm going to be very blunt I hope you wouldn't mind one of these reasons is the kind of master in this now master servant attitude of negotiators or even the power bearers who still believe and portray negotiations as if there is a colonial you know I mean that colonial mentality is still there my apologies then seen Africa as heroes of wood and fetches of water and having the respect for fundamental human rights knowing that these people must develop at some point now I don't know how terminus is going to help me in doing this but I'm going to be going to try as much as possible number one is that if we are going to develop an investment investment relationship that will benefit both parties one is the appreciation of the people of West Africa appreciation of one where they're coming from appreciation of these people as human beings as well appreciation of their fundamental you know rights to exist and to avoid temptation of putting that master servant exchange you know in the process of negotiations and recognizing and negotiating from a development oriented perspective that's very key two is the understanding that trades and its outcome must be a win-win and therefore the negotiators must carry that in their mind that whatever outcome must be a win-win not one party outscoring the other it is not a football match where one wins and then goes off no have in mind that's particular win-win strategy and maintain the gear number three is on the issue of the recognition of a pro and pro development approach that recognizes as well the special and differential treatment provisions of the WTO this is very important as we negotiate very key understand that there is a paradigm shift there is a gap in terms of development and therefore there must be some standard you know where this order side will not be given the short end of the road the other one is having the in mind that all of us gathered together at the level of the united nations and this is my number four at the level of nations to talk about the mdgs which is today sustainable development goals now in these goals the agenda must therefore in all our trade negotiations in all our investment negotiations must carry in mind those particular bullets those particular points that's sdgs eminently incorporated and therefore leaving no one behind number five a five is the recognition that foreign direct investments from the EU to west Africa would promote the protection of the EU's investment by the people by the people because you know the understanding that the volume of employment i mean uh employment that comes up from such investments on this side of west africa if the people understand it if west africans understand that there is a volume of investment i mean of employment that comes up from these investments from the EU then they will seek to protect it they will see it as their own and they will take ownership of every design and the process of trades and investment negotiations number six number six for me is the importance of both parties supporting each other particularly the european union supporting west africa at international forum at all international negotiations knowing that there is a relationship and that relationship would give that support and then west africa understands that there is a regular support coming from this end then the respects will be there number seven number seven is subjecting the processes of direct legislations to parliamentary reviews regular parliamentary reviews i am happy that this is a parliament uh you know member of parliament in fact a parliamentary committee raising this matter trying to review trying to understand what has gone wrong what where are we what can be done and therefore recognizing the power of the members of parliament presupposes that there should be part and parcel of legislations right from the beginning to its end in fact given the role of the members of parliament in oversight function it also presupposes that there should be part and parcel of it even in implementation so that they can oversight and also monitor and evaluate outcomes number seven for me uh number eight rather is provide the provision of you know financial support to west africa wherever and whenever necessary i know that EU is uh you know a very um you know a good partner in this in this supportive partner but i think that there is also the opportunity to move a bit further in this direction especially now that we have the african-competitive outfit i am expecting i am watching i am wanting to see the european union providing more support for african's integration so that africa can come together as a regional bloc and therefore if a regional bloc with a common external tariff and therefore with a custom union and it makes it easier for european union to integrate the people and trade investment can flow better number nine number nine for me is listening to the non-state actors as you know often as possible not just trade must not be seen as a government versus government thing including the negotiations including the negotiations there are private sector, labor unions, civil society have the vital voice that must be listened to and from time to time i expect that both parties must therefore improve the listening ear just like the listening mode that is being you know kick started now these voices are very critical and therefore handholding of private sector is very monumental in this process number 10 i don't know what i did but i'm number 10 or so now you know i i'll just keep moving but i'm looking at my time um the next is being patient with west african partners and their processes and i want to quickly say that why the EU have almost you know had almost all their policies harmonized you have your services policy you have your trade policy you have your common uh you know uh intellectual property policy you have common investment policy you have common almost in every sub sector but if you come here in west africa just like he's in many many of the african countries you will see that even some countries don't have policies some countries don't have policies in fact in nigeria today i'm in nigeria nigeria today we're fighting thing what's here is the absence of a trade policy and therefore if we should have if we should negotiate i have said this often if we should negotiate as a bloc we should also move from having our internal trade policy to a regional common trade policy because that is the only way you will have you know a compass that will navigate your negotiations properly and seem clearly like you know the pilots at the aircraft the next point is avoiding the destruction i'm a destructive power of uh deadlines insistence on deadlines one of the things that promote negotiations that i have been part and passing off and by the way i have to say this myself and the shape i've seen uh dr shape here who are part of the negotiations of the economic financial agreement between the two sides and one thing that i saw was you know the insistence on deadlines no deadlines are meant for human beings deadlines are meant you must not you try and make sure that these people have some time to roll themselves in just like i said earlier that they don't have common policies gives them some time to also harmonize their policies don't look strictly on the deadlines the next point for me is measuring the outcomes and this is very important for me measuring the outcomes of our negotiations on trading investments very monumental if i look at the kutuna agreement for instance which is the modern and the father of the epa for instance there are there's a tripod objective one regional integration to poverty reduction three sustainable development and therefore whatever we negotiate on trade and investment within that context must be judged or measured within the benchmark of these three objectives unfortunately today i must say that's looking at epa as an example what we have seen is a rather disintegration of west africa today we have the epa for the 12th member countries of you know from that order the least developed countries in west africa number two we have the interim agreement for for kudewa number three we have the interim argument arrangement for gana number four we have nigeria you know gsp so how do you operate and you are negotiating with the region that's a bit a bit a bit off so i think that we must measure within the template of regional integration integration integration and integration how is our immigration outcome and process bringing about integration to the people very important how much poverty is ever losing very important how much sustainable development is being put on the tackle for the people very key and i want to also submit that you know we need to as i conclude we also need to consider and this might be very frank and brutal we must begin to consider mood for of trade is although there was no decisions on that but mood for very critical when i look at the needless death of african youths majority of them from west africa dying along the mediterranean who are seeking for visa to come over seeking you know greener pastors and they die over there in thousands hey i asked myself yes i'm i'm i'm almost done i asked myself is there no possibility that we are negotiating trade we are negotiating trade but can we also see in the interest of great in the light of great in the light of this development negotiate in the way that these people would have a secure life these people will have an easy movement this is very very important finally i want to thank you again and say that um we must begin to look at what china is doing in africa today although many of us are not happy completely but mp please when you look at the monuments airports schools malls you know and these are things that are there visible monuments that will be there over years you'll not begin to ask yourself with the european union that we have stayed for many decades what are the monuments that i thank you very much thank you for this introduction yeah i mean interesting and problems raising introduction from from africa so i would immediately give the floor to dr shake titian and die welcome also to our panels this evening you are one of the negotiators for the part so you have heard just now a third message and it will be interesting to listen to you how do you judge the situation where we are also in the relationship uh to the afc fta and probably also how to implement when stg's uh in um in in the east in the eco box structure and where we are with the trade and investment relations between this africa and the european union the floor is yours dr shake thank you very much um for inviting me to this workshop i'm very happy joining you for this discussion on this issue which is very important both for africa and europe as we are all working to change in order to reinforce the africa-eu relations but in a in in new dynamics and new approaches because a lot of things have to change if you allow me i would like to move into french uh to make my uh my remarks as i see that there are interpretation and i'm more comfortable on in french uh thank you thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for having invited you to take part in this discussion it is of utmost importance to take part in this discussion and to contribute to it you have mentioned the fact that i was part of the regional negotiation body which negotiated between the eu and west africa for the a epa and i represented the civil organization and i wish to recognize here my colleague dr ken ukawa with whom i've worked for many years now when we talk about relations between africa and the eu we have to mention economic partnership agreements they i put it in the plural because there are several epas and some agreements are actually signed with specific uh countries with specific objectives with specificities etc you may remember that things started in 1992 then in 2003 and the eu had split up the african continent in five sub regions which was a problem for the civil society because it was very difficult to understand that an agreement which was there to strengthen the african capacities and which was there to have a regional approach and to make regions stronger it was bizarre to start with a split up we had uh one west africa echo was plus uh moritania then we had said we had different five different regional areas which all negotiated an epa with the eu but then what have we been able to observe well there's something quite specific and that is that the agreement was actually these agreements were very long in their duration this was a one-off it was a very long a very long process it was very complex and now why was it why did it take so long why was it so complex well because europe had actually demands which were just unacceptable and not sustainable for the african economies and in addition to that for the first time africa became fully aware of the importance of its economic and social relationship with europe and africa decided it was not just going to take what europe was going to give it it decided to negotiate on an equal footing and that is where the civil society played a major role all through these negotiations as possible to block the negotiations just to give you an example of the excessive demands on behalf of the eu you know that the eu was uh saying and claiming that it was going to fight poverty but this is just phraseology we know that free trade does not bring this fight against poverty etc now europe had excessive demands on africa and at the same time we had actually asked for this agreement so that we would comply with the rules of the world trade organization and instead of limiting oneself to what was required by the wto the eu decided to go for so-called comprehensive agreement which was going to cover the free trade of goods plus uh investment plus uh intellectual property etc and lots of other things which was not truly necessary to be compliant with what was requested by the wto and europe's mission was actually to include a clause um how do you call it um a clause specific to emerging countries this was article 15 which provided that everything that europe would provide to emerging countries it would also be provided to uh the to all nations who benefited from the preferential from the generalized system of preferences in fact this was a specific clause which the eu wanted to integrate but africa refused because they understood it was a no-go now speaking about west africa out of 16 countries of west africa i.e 15 of ecowas plus moritania 12 of those countries were amongst the least developed countries i.e these least developed countries were not obliged according to the wto agreement to open up their borders and yet in the pa the eu considered that had to be done this was not acceptable what it means is that from 2003 until 2014 or 2015 the agreement was negotiated but for west africa there was no comprehensive agreement as the eu wanted now the result was that there was a total disintegration of west africa now having said that the west african region now has five different trade regimes because uh you have this situation of codivoir there is an epa with codivoir there's one with gana there is the generalized system of preferences with nigeria there is a provision of everything but arms with other countries and yet another trade regime that's far too many regimes trade regimes for one area and so the eu was claiming that they were going to harmonize things well quite the contrary happened in fact it was very very complicated and in other parts of africa some countries which were ldc's have been put in jeopardy now i just wanted to say a few words concerning the interim agreement the interim epa with codivoir and that with gana in fact codivoir had already signed an interim agreement in 2007 whereas this did not happen when in fact it happened on 26 of november 20 2008 it was then ratified in 2016 now since 2019 codivoir has started opening up its market for goods coming from the eu now in this this monthling of the codivoir market some 1555 tariff headings are relating to goods that come from eu without having to pay any tariffs we're talking about equipment appliances raw materials etc and they can arrive on the codivoir market and they don't have to pay any taxes any rights this will have an impact at regional level because countries such as mali or burkina faso which receive a lot of imports from codivoir and they are presently wondering whether the products that arrive from codivoir are actually products which have benefited from the liberalization linked to the epa and they arrive on the markets of mali or burkina faso but then they become competitive with a lot of products so this is absolutely not compliant with the aim which was being followed and as of 2024 you know that there's a liberalization for a second type of goods which will take place in codivoir and this will have a major impact for the imports coming from codivoir to other countries of the region i'm not saying that other countries in the region are from now on going to refuse any imports from codivoir but it's completely changing the phase of eco us because all these european products coming from the eu arriving in codivoir also benefit from different rules regarding the rules of origin and in gana since january of 2018 gana has ratified an interim epa with the eu and presently gana is seeking some technical solutions in order to do the same as codivoir was doing now what we're wondering is the following the african countries i'm limiting i'm limiting this to african countries not notwithstanding acp countries but in the african continent you have a lot of these developed countries who cannot be winners if they sign an epa it is not in their interest to liberalize their markets because the ldc countries already have some provisions so in addition to that they are asked to liberalize their markets but nothing is done in terms of investment in terms of capacity building in terms of building industry etc so these are the essential questions which the african countries are continuing to ask themselves and this is why there is no epa at west african level and we representatives of the civil organization we had worked in order to try and counter the epa at regional level we succeeded there was no regional epa for west africa because the west african has understood thanks to nigeria and thanks to the civil society thanks to the private sector that you cannot open up your markets for up to 75 percent to products from the eu because africa does not have capacity to sustain this and in addition to that we cannot just continue as we are europe is actually continuing committing errors one mistake after the other europe is just not seeing that the epa model is a failure the epa model is a failure nothing was done to strengthen integration nothing was done in order to develop local capacity local production capacities and in fact the epas have led to problems in terms of trust between the europeans and the africans because the africans realized that had europe been able to reach its objective certainly regions and countries would have signed epas in 2008 but i'd like to remind you that in 2008 echo was did not have a common policy of outside tariff and yet the eu was pressing the echo was and west africa to sign a regional epa that would certainly not have been appropriate at the time echo was did not have an agreement regarding tariffs now sectoral policies yes agricultural policy is being implemented but there are no other policies that are being set up in africa that could sustain investments and production activities i believe what is necessary to do is to first set up these possibilities set up a common tariff at regional level strengthen the private sector in africa give the right conditions to africa and then negotiate agreements not only with europe but with whoever wishes to appropriately trade with african countries that says not being done the cart was put before the horses now what can we do today we have to draw some lessons the lesson is that the civil society has already told the EU that they have to look for other options europe continues pushing the epas and trying to implement epas but europe itself has changed i will finish in one minute since brexit the nature of europe has changed europe has negotiated with a cp countries with africa then the uk left for that the negotiations took place when the EU was made of 28 countries so things have changed then since an agreement of post after cotton new has taken place this has also changed the relationships between europe and africa and this has to be taken into consideration by europe and thirdly africa is presently setting up an african continental free trade area this is a very ambitious project if the epas are being set up before the fc fta is set up it will be very difficult for the african continental free trade area to develop because epas could actually have a negative impact on this african continental free trade area and finally i'd just like to remind you of the covid 19 pandemics where although countries are trying to find policies to develop and redevelop these countries need actually to have a margin of maneuver they should not be forced to respect the epa agreements of liberalization so i just wanted to mention this but to end let me say that europe needs to change its approach vis-à-vis africa it needs to change its strategy its priorities and the way it deals with africa let alone the state of mind because paternalistic behavior continues on behalf of the european diplomacy and on behalf of the european relations and this means there is a great deal of misunderstandings this is what i wanted to say in the first part thank you very much for your attention thank you very much dr shake titiana dear for this also um what to say a focused point of view on the epa with eight of us and uh that leads me not to waste too much time for own comments to give the floor to mr venbel adi from the patent african chamber of commerce very happy to have you with us because last time it was just short when you could follow the east african community debina but today the floor is yours have to unmute please we lost you do you hear me yeah i can hear you yes my apology my colleagues have touched on the key areas so i would not do well on statistics but our focus on how we can governize the private sector to become functional and empower them in a way that we can bring about some stability across the continent right now we have four african countries caught up in coups out of 15 or 16 countries that's terrible we do not know mr adi is a very fine dark thing can you include your camera because otherwise the translation will not function i'm afraid that okay you got me yes all right so i'm basically i was saying that we have to look at it from a different perspective in terms of a galvanized stakeholder base in terms of constituency from the private sector begin to up the role of the co-op and the activities of government so that we can have a more stable more functional governance situation situation across the continent that provides peace and stability private sector cannot thrive in the midst of all of the chaos that exists currently and so that's the focus of my presentation i'll be in the interest of time i will just came it through but would send you the hard copy the soft copy pardon me my focus is EU african policy and program reset for mutual prosperity with focus on west african but in context i'll be speaking generally about the continent i represent the private sector AP APSS organization a think tank body that works with and govern nice private sector and partners stakeholders like the pan african chamber of commerce and industry african business council manufacturer association labor organization association of african universities consumer organization civil organization for common cause advocate advocacy for action to influence change for an enabling business environment in african we are currently working on the bill of rights advocating for government's commitment for an enabling business environment we seek a business environment that is characterized by the tennis of peace stability will look low embedded with predictability under push domestic and foreign investors can try we seek to identify key policy and program enablers that will enhance and accelerate the implementation of the regional economic communities such as aquas and after protocols for real inclusive economic growth and development personally as my personal thing i'll come back to that but first in the context of west africa the EU policy on partnership agreement having concluded in 2014 with 16 countries of the region through aquas economic community of west africa and umma in 2020 west africa EU exports accounted for some 22.4 billion euros while EU west africa was 25.8 billion as such the EU remains one of the west one of west africa's largest trading and strategic partners therefore should the EU seek to increase trade between two regions it must relook at its policies directed at engaging and strengthening the private sector membership organization from both regions with the goal of greater collaboration for identification of new business opportunities while facilitating experience share sharing and build to build the capacity of private sector membership organization shim of commerce business associations led by the pan african shim of commerce and industry and the newly established african business council to to the african union academic institutions led by the association of african universities labor society organization in west africa and the continent basically was saying that we need to work with these institutions empower them that is the EU should begin to look at these constituency based institution so that collectively we can begin to bring about some accountability in governance across the continent there are key areas that we're looking at one the private the private sector bill of rights is key for enabling business environment it provides for accountability it provides for recognition of the role of the private sector because most in most african countries the private sector happens to be in an afterthought nobody thinks about it government officials engage in the dialogues with the EU are right and at the end of the day there is no consideration in terms of the input of the private sector oftentimes you find that when you have the validation situation required in the dark agreement with the with the EU for example world bank and other other governments you will find meetings are held between government officials and the and the the foreign entity and the private sector usually just calling to sit listening to what they have committed the country to and then they consider it as a validation process we think that process has to change and that is that would be in the mutual interest of the of the of both the EU and the and the government so in essence what we think here going forward part of this mutual prosperity has to come about in terms of the partnering including the partnership of the private sector in these dialogue with government if you no longer be just government sitting at a table the private sector has to be at a table because at the end of the day when when the disruption what is civil civil unrest cause because of the governance issue whether it is an aspiring desiring to extend this term whatever the situation is it is the private sector that takes the brunt of the of the of the event as well as the people okay because the people take to the street and they destroy the private the businesses and so forth so I think it is time that the private sector be included in some of these discussions with these negotiations now there is also another key issue here you cannot talk about education I mean after for example without recognizing the critical role that academia has to play so as tomorrow for example we'll be commissioning a trust fund an advocate education a trust fund what we're looking at is that the development in on the continent cannot occur without academia so what we were able to do in March of last year was to bring academia and the benefit of commercial together and say look let us work together you provide a skill sets demands for the workforce for the continent we will then find a way to help to provide the jobs all right so what we're saying here is that the trust fund is critical is critical to read them the education system at university levels and a team that levels so that the skill sets workforce can be provided across the continent we also think that this particular aspect of what we're doing is critical because it will help to empower many of our people who now try to migrate to west coming to Europe in other places greener past for greener pasture we think this is very important and i it's something that the EU should begin to look at if we provide the skill sets for the people on the continent transform the resources of the continent people will have better paying jobs the development will be accelerated and people would be more receptive to staying within the continent because they have they have jobs they can send their children to school and all of that so what we then there's the issue of visas let's say Dr Ken referenced China you know and i'd like to share a story with you China in 1987 you recall the crisis of 1987 that is when that very period is when China started to look at a new market what had happened what happened was that China in most of the Asian countries had reached their the quarter system limits with the US they had access to sitting down and so China decided to invest five billion dollars look at new market that new market was Africa today they're ripping their the investment this is how China started now what is critical here think about this any street peddler can obtain a visa to go to China any street peddler can obtain a visa to go to China in to travel to Europe the states it's a different ballgame even some of the wealthiest are denied visa wealthiest business people are denied visa to come to to the to travel to Europe or to the states so this is why you find that people go to China much easily because and come back get the goods so if Europe and the west would begin to look at this this visa issue from a business perspective all right you can put in all of your regulation policies into play all right for example in 2000 i think was in i used to serve as an active member of the of the consumer movement in Africa i'm one of the founders of that movement and what we what we came up with we had problem many about we every three years it's the consumer congress and we have we had a congress in the in France mafia of France and those were many of the leaders who attended the conference in France had problem obtaining visas you know in in Ghana the the president of the consumer movement there was two all of the compound the ms's compound similar thing happened in the in the in the night here but what we're saying here that can be a system and i recall that in 2000 we came up with a waiver system we obtained your visa you with your rights for any legal for change of state just as well of any legal challenge so that that is something that you sign before you get you get a visa so that was the concept that we're about to report forward at the echo salt and the at the at the u.s. unfortunately the 9 11 took place and so that became a back a back burner thing we're also trying to we're not looking at each whole the initiative of democracy the traditional method that have been used to advance democracy in Africa has failed miserably oftentimes you have situations where an organization goes into a country identified in an advocate who would who has been advocating for change and so forth and the fund the organization what is missing here is that this organization or such organization usually do not have a constituency based link okay so what we're saying now that the private sector can help to advance democracy and you can only do so by looking at those organizations with strong constituency base the university association african african university has a strong constituent base you have the professors you have the student body the chamber of commerce and other business associations have a have constituent base you have members of the of the the organization all right that they can that the leadership can turn to because the leaders were collected by these people all right so you have the we have the labor union the little labor unit has a constituent base the last that i checked there's some i think 15 000 workforce racial members of the union across the continent if you add the the non-union members you talk of probably maybe 50 million people all right so we need to begin to look at democracy from the standpoint of strengthening these organizations at the at the at the empower them so that we have the skill sets to administer the activities to ensure that we can advance democracy across the continent so about about the advancing the initiative here we're talking about the universities we're talking about general commerce and all of the various business associations we talk about labor unions across the continent we're talking about CSOs and so forth so look we need to look at it from a constituency base so that together we can co-opt the politicians we can call for strong governance policy we can talk we can engage the EU the the ECOWAS and all of these regional bodies that we need to ensure that we have stability across across the continent so that businesses can thrive and provide solution for the migration of to counter the migration issue that takes place across the continent another area that could be addressed is me in the private sector representation the organization would be regional and continental in the continental implementation of of EU funded programs not just the EU it could be America it could be UN whoever what is important here is that oftentimes you find that funds are giving end up with government all right and you do not get the end results of the of the of your investment so what we're saying for example is that EU funding if it is going through the UNDP for example and it is and has been administered or coordinated through a government entity involved the Chamber of Commerce involved the private sector so that they can help to provide some real accountability in the process lastly I will send you the paper but lastly when we talk we need to talk about the relationship between the private sector and government it is important we find here that oftentimes government as a result of bad governance all right run to foreign institutional and multilateral institution for loans whether they pay the African banks for some of the African development bank or whether it is the the African bank they run to this organization to build them out of the economic crisis but the reality of the ground is that the people who are who automated are the payer all these obligations happen to be the private sector that is the ground reality the government's ability to pay his bill is determined by the the the function of the private sector so technically the government's revenue is a function of the performance of the private sector now if the if the government policy is bad secondly the government the private sector would not thrive very well and the government would not be able to pay his bill so what we're saying now is that they built the health of the relationship between the private sector and the public sector must be a factor just as they currently have a situation now where the environment is a factor in determining the public sector lending gender balance is a factor in determining public sector lending we're saying now the health of the relationship between the private sector and the government government must be one of the determining factor in extending loans to the to the public sector I think one of my colleagues I think Dr. Kent talked about the migration issue I think that if we can build a strong private sector by supporting you know I think this is where one of the stakes that Western countries are making and that's why China has an advantage is that if you actually want to prefer a product out of Europe out of the states and so but pick at it cheaper in China whether it work for two days or three days it's not an issue they can be a high standard product so I think it is in its now mutual interest that we also include supporting consumer movements across the country it's a UN requirement it's a UN resolution that all countries must have a consumer movement okay I recall when we came up with a model of modern law consumer protection law back in 1997 I stand corrected on the name I think my name was Verna Pernitio she represented the EU she was one of the commissioners she represented the EU in commissioning that model law for Africa unfortunately because Africans do not understand the importance of consumerism that it has that really taking off across the continent so I think we need to read Mr. Eddie we have you have to come to find to the end we have no time well I thank you basically we thank you please let's focus on empowering the Chamber of Commerce the the Association of African University the labor organization well they have money because they have membership dues they're greater than the Chamber of Commerce and the CS will sort that together we look at this the constituency based body to help to transform the continent so that we can slow down this military takeover across the continent thank you thank you very much Mr. Eddie unfortunately we are running out of time so to have all the speakers given the really the ability to to put us in a listening mood and to speak out what they want I will go now immediately to the floor to Dr. Domingo San Basilio and please try to keep at least 10 minutes so that also our Vice President from the European Parliament has a chance to respond to you and all the others with the questions I have already a list of questions so please go ahead thank you thank you very much so I thank the organizers for their invitation thank you very much I wish to thank the organizers for having invited me I hope you can hear me and I'd like to also acknowledge the other speakers I'd like to quickly share my screen can you see my screen yet yes okay thank you thank you so much well I would like to speak about micro finance relations or conditions rather which could be very beneficial for the better development of African countries economies we talk a lot about relationships between the EU and Africa but the production is left aside because if you don't use if you don't manufacture a wide range of products it will be very difficult to actually uh wreak the profits now the relationship between Europe and Africa the relationship has not been very beneficial for Africa and in addition to what has been said so far let me also say that the micro finance financial environment is not really appropriate the 14 countries which use the french cfa frank plus camours are a group of countries but I will actually limit myself to the um the West African economic and monetary union in fact we have eight countries Senegal, Burkina, Niger, Togo, Benin, I could you see these countries in West Africa the others belong to Central Africa so these countries have the same currency the cfa frank this currency was created in 1945 during the colonial period and it's based on three essential pillars the first pillar is the fixed parity with the french currency first the french frank and since 1999 the euro the second pillar is the free transferability i hear the freedom to transfer capital and income between the countries of each cfa block and between these countries and France third pillar convertibility which is guaranteed by the french treasury the french ministry of finance which means french is will possibly actually provide some loans to the bcao the central bank of west african state and the bac the bank of central african states but the french government will request that 50 percent of the foreign exchange reserves be entrusted to the french treasury after independence it was 100 but what this means is that the french government is represented in the bodies of both central banks with a veto right that has become implicit as time passes in 2019 a reform was announced but it hasn't been led very far just in two words let me say that the so-called french guarantee does not really exist the french finance law from 2020 indicates here that the authorizations of commitments are zero for the west african monetary union for the central african monetary union and for the camours camours island union so for many years there's not been any loan from the french treasurer quite the contrary but the african countries deposited money within the french treasury and yet the french authorities the french government is able to actually decide what goes on with the french franc and yet this is going against the structural development of those countries what i'm saying is that this currency is no longer an african currency it's a euro african currency now you must know that france negotiated with its african counterparts the different thing on 20 november 2018 a decision was made what it says that the authorities of the monetary union in europe need to be made aware whether there has been any change concerning the parity between the french franc and the cfa and generally speaking european authorities need to be informed of any changes now what i'm saying and what my argument is about is that you cannot talk about free trade if there are measures that make it that the african countries are never able to develop their economic potential and i believe that certainly the EU needs to take into consideration the cfa franc situation because we can never have a winner winning winning a win-win situation now to come back to the west african countries if you look at the geographical share between the exports it appears that europe is the number one economic partner but it's actually the country's outside of the euro zone that are main partners to uemoa uemoa partners but here you have switzerland which in 2020 represented 24.5 percent of exports from the uemoa whereas all together you can see the european union represented 22 now there are products from mali senegal and other countries imports now you can see that europe is the main trade partner and in particular the european union and more specifically the euro zone which represent 31 percent of imports for the uemoa and france is the leading countries with 14 percent of the imports and its market shares have remained relatively stable since 2012 now what does it mean it means that the euro zone actually doesn't buy anything from african buys gold cocoa yes but essentially nothing in terms of manufactured goods and yet african countries are outlet markets for all the european products and the european union and the euro zone need africa as outlet markets and if we change things if we're liberalized trade we're going to destroy those countries these countries have nothing to sell to europe and europe has not helped them to develop their productive capacities and you can see here a country like france which at global level is not very important its exports has been reduced but france according to ungthad is the ninth exporter it represents 2.8 percent of world exports but in the cfa francs area it represents more than 20 percent so you can see there are still very strong link between france and its former colonies and that is due also to the cfa franc which is helping france than other countries now you have to make a distinction between the territorial area and the monetary area because i've just seen i just presented statistics to you based on graphic area but if you look into consider if you take into consideration who exports and imports towards west africa and the area of cfa as a matter of fact it's the dollar zone because within the wamoo trade invoice in euro accounts for 17 percent whereas the trade in your way france only represents 7.7 percent of total trade of the west african monetary union so from a purely economic point of view there's no real point of having a fixed parity between the french franc and the cfa franc this mechanism is a new colonial system and is no longer justified and yet this fixed parity has very important consequences on the african economies why is that it's because euro is a very strong currency becoming stronger vis-à-vis the u.s. dollar and therefore the cfa franc also becomes stronger and yet most of our exports are labeled in the dollar currency now here a book written by alizah far who is a former economist of the world bank who wrote the cfa franc zone economic development and a post-covid recovery and in his book he explains that the cfa area in west africa well the exchange rate is over evaluated by 20 20 percent which means you tax your exports and you subsidize your imports what it means is that you're always experiencing a commercial deficit you always have a trade deficit a current trade deficit and in west africa only senegal out of the cfa franc area sometimes have a trade balance which is positive now all of this is the end to the parity the fixed parity if you look at this graph it is the development of the euro dollar exchange rate between 2000 and july 2008 through that period the value of euro has increased against the dollar constantly and if you look at the difference between 2000 2008 the value of euro was 1208 to 1 to 1.5 so this is a 90 appreciation and this was and this impacted african farmers the cotton sector in brunette faso went bankrupt for several reasons or for one main reason i.e the euro was too strong this is a report from the difference development agency and it was said that if we did not reconsider the parity euro cfa franc we would even more compromise the sec the cotton sector in africa because when the value of your increase is vis-à-vis the dollar it means that when you convert your dollars in cfa you lose out in terms of income and these are problems like compounded by illicit financial flows because they often are to do with commodities if you look at cote d'ivoire they export cocoa to germany and to france between 95 and 2014 the illicit financial flows which are actually under invoiced exports amounted to 4.5 billion in total 182 million per year and as to france it also accounts for 28 percent of the total exports of cote d'ivoire so as long as these countries remain in this primary specialization they will have to fight this additional scourge and what must be added is that in that context where the countries have deficits and trade balances and have fixed exchange rates the only way they have is to run into debt in foreign currencies with untenable and sustainable levels of debt and the other way is to ration productive credit and i'm taking the example of a Senegal my country in 2019 the Senegalese primary sector farming capital raising fisheries only received 53 53 billion cfa francs in terms of mid-term and long-term loans and by comparison the bco lend to its staff 3 000 people 52 billion cfa francs it means that 3 000 persons working for bco got loans of 52 billion the equivalent of what the whole Senegalese private sector would receive from the banking sector but then don't go 2.2 percent of all bank loans and the same phenomenon is observed in other countries and here you can see that these countries are not attractive but ganna on its own received a stonker for investment similar to all the countries of weyamu together so this is my conclusion this is my final slide this table shows the interdevelopment of those countries remaining within the cfa franc area niger had its best income per capita in 1965 with eight hundred ninety eight dollars currently this per capita income is 524 so it means a difference of 71.5 percent could be one the real income per capita is 43 percent lower than the best income level obtained in 1978 44 years ago if you look at guinea bissau which entered the cfa zone in 1997 when they joined that area they had the best level of income per capita at 100 and now that level is 750 means that guinea bissau is worse off 23 percent that was off than in 1997 when they joined the cfa franc area nowadays we talk a lot about coups in western africa all these take place in the franc in the cfa area between 2002 and 2018 there were 78 coups or attended coups and all of them except one are in those countries these cfa franc countries because they do not develop as long as you have these adverse microeconomic conditions which are destructive of development you cannot wonder that international trade would not benefit african countries so you have to pay attention to these macroeconomic conditions why can you recommend those conclusions that first of all that europeans invest start thinking about the cfa franc question and that we put an end to this neoclonal system second that the ap are done away with that cooperation agreement to strengthen the production capacities of african countries and we should also put an end to illicit financial flows which capture part of the surplus created by african economies thank you for your attention thank you dr don don't go from basilar for the figures i would i was a panelist to send us their inputs being at the graphics being at your your your spoken words and i would just give the vice president of european parliament and standing rapporteur for the ecobas region petro silva perera the floor maybe the first comment but probably we have to discuss much more after your introduction mark thank you very much well thank you good evening to you all and says here congratulations to you albert for launching these debates in a listening mode it will help us for sure to produce a report on the trade and investment relations between you and african it shows how serious you are about this exercise so thank you for that i also like to thank the the guests for their views very interesting but also showing how complex these issues are i took note of the concerns expressed also clear messages on the role of the civil society actors in all this regarding the economic development of the west african region and also the way solutions for trade and investment are discussed between the african institutions and the european union and i agree with what was said that if we really want to address the challenges that we face then it's not only about discussing trade arrangements it is really discussing about the the the direction of a partnership between the european union and africa and also the the the elements that are decisive to reach good results and i'm thinking about this last intervention on micro financial conditions that is something that sometimes is out of the rather when we discuss this kind of issues but they are indeed very important i agree with you albert when you said that africa is the continent of the future and for sure the partnership between the european union and africa is of major strategic importance and i hope that it can be a catalyst it is being already a catalyst i must say but it can be even more for economic growth in one hand and for inclusive fair and sustainable development in africa this has to do with this post-continue context where the partnership with the african countries is also developed and i think that we have to recognize that the european is making a serious effort with financial instruments for investment for cooperation for development in africa we know the role of the european union and the european union member states regarding official aid in africa also the efforts made to address the challenges of this pandemic the particular effort made regarding vaccines and of course a lot of more has to be done but what i'm saying is that we have to define as equal partners common goals and those have to be addressed also through proper investment and targeted investment for the development of the west african region now it is up to you albert to give the answers to our guests through your report so i will leave you with that but let me say two or three things more in particular in my position as standing reporter for the economic partnership agreement with west africa and the fundamental question is does this economic partnership agreement as a role to play promoting sustainable development goals in the region or not or is something that we should roll out as not significant or not positive at all and in this respect i must tell you that i don't see an opposition regarding the economic partnership agreement between the european union and the african countries or the african region the truth is that this epa was signed by 15 out of 16 countries in the west african region it is supported also by the regional institutions the economic community of west african countries the states and also the west african montanion economic union so it is recognized as a positive element for the development of west africa um uh we can always discuss if is it sufficiently asymmetric as it should be because in fact uh we have to take into account the situation of totally unbalanced development between the european union and the west african region and this was shown in near near presentations as well the situation of unbalanced trade that we have and an epa is sufficiently asymmetric we will have to allow a certain degree of protectionist measures we know that but the truth is that the countries that have signed in the african region believe that the the agreement is at least sufficiently asymmetric and that we can address many of the issues that are still there in terms of the future relationship within the implementation of the agreement and making use also of the review cost um that is foreseen in the agreement itself and i'm saying this um and you will uh agree uh for sure elmwood that uh we have serious um reservations regarding the ambitions of the dimension the insufficient ambition of the agreement in terms of sustainable development this is an agreement that was negotiated uh many years ago the negotiations were concluded already in 2014 since then the european union is making a much more ambitious uh trade agreement in terms of sustainable development and we want to improve them even further so um if you ask me i'm not totally satisfied i'm far from being satisfied with the sustainable development dimension of the epa with us west africa we know that we have to look for some interpretations uh they are making use of the general causes of the the continued agreement so that we can establish an interpretation that is more favorable for sustainable development goals but also we know that in the negotiations there was also some resistance to have more concrete commitments in this respect but it is these are the kind of things that we can address via a review cost so um then i would say that we have to do much more to bring on board uh nigeria and i think the european commission is not doing enough in order to strengthen the bilateral relationship with nigeria um nigeria is of course the largest country and economy in the region representing around 70 percent of the population in west africa uh it is one of the country's morals most needed by this uh pandemic um and now also with economic consequences of the pandemic the the energy crisis that we are seeing and so it is difficult to find an example of an economy that really needs to look for a diversification and that means also to develop their own industries their local production so that this economy can respond to the challenges my understanding is that economic partnership agreements with european union will promote and help to stimulate economic reforms in the direction of diversification um but this would not exclude on the contrary it asked for an additional effort from the part of european commission to support the development of these countries and of these economies the diversification that they need and this is a role for the european commission of course but it is also a role for the european investment bank and i hope that in your report you'll find the space to recall to the european investment bank the the role that the european investment bank can play in um supporting the development uh the economic development uh um in the region and in particular the diversification of the economies uh i think that nothing of this is contrary to the promotion and the development of the african continental free trade area i don't see an opposition there and i agree that the european union also has to do with part in terms of technical and financial assistance so that an african continental free trade area can work properly and i think we can do that if we define really common goals without any sign of colonial mentality or a patternalist approach i think that's not what we want here and i hope that listening to the concerns of our west african partners you can through your report um produce a positive input for this process so that trade and investment between european union and africa and west africa can be an instrument for sustainable development that's the goal that we share so thank you for my thank you very much for this invitation and all the best for your work thank you petro and i guess the work will be in a certain way also our joint undertaking in the parliament in particular from all colleagues in the trade uh international trade committee because you can imagine that concentrating on one aspect in particular the trade and commercial relations will be of course not possible to to to neglect what does it mean from migration to the development issues for the social cultural development and all the aspects we have heard today so i have at least two more questions on my on my desk here i have seen it i will at least read them out maybe as time is really coming already more than used to the end and as we had been requested by florian to leave our guests from from the region to watch the football game i will read out the questions maybe to our panelists and if you agree you can answer them in written as we are also expecting your contributions for the further reconsideration of the work for our work on the on the report button not only on the report but to rethink how we are composing how we are structuring our future relationship from the opinion with with you uh in uh invest africa in the other regions of africa because i really think it is high time and to to rethink what has been the past the past has gone and now we have to to construct a joint and and construct a relationship for the future so the question for for dr shake the idea you mentioned the division of africa by the u and the epa's this division continues as africa seeks to build a single market at last week's event it was proposed to suspend all epas and negotiations for 10 years and to ask you to grant all african countries market access such as the one benefiting low income countries through everything but arms so what do you think with your experience also what you have said today would this allow africa to benefit from market protection against low priced imports from the european union until africa has built its internal market huge question probably we have not the time to go into the details by answering them but i think it's very worthwhile a question because it's really focusing on the question what is it what is the core of the future economic cooperation and the other question to dr ken ukawa uh nigeria remains the main obstacle to the regional epa not being enforced in west africa moreover nigeria has very very high import restrictions especially for agricultural products even stricter than those foreseen in the city the u is pressing nigeria to finally sign the epa so does nigeria high import protection lead to a better development in agriculture production and small-scale industry than for neighbors with open markets to the european union such as garner kudewa or senegal so the question is again how the intra-regional cooperation economic inter-linguages are organized with or without epa and what does it mean for the political governance how to fight corruption how to strengthen democratic structures in the countries which would also make it more reliable to focus on an intra-regional cooperation i'm stopping here with the questions i hope we keep in touch we we we get the answers to the two questions i would ask florian horn from the result book foundation to send the questions to you in written so that you have them and maybe to all the other participants as well so we have the recording of today you have the chance to listen to the recording of the east african community and a webinar last week and i give the promise that we will continue next week wednesday six o'clock evening uh is north africa on the agenda and i promise we try to be better in the gender parity um composition of the panel as responsible for gender mainstreaming sometimes and the inter-committee sometimes not so easy to find uh and the input from from distinguished guest i hope we keep in contact looking forward for for a good corporation thank you very much for this evening thank you trans translators to heaven made it possible and thank you uh also for the organizers for the co-host of this webinar see you