EU downplays Tanzania’s decision to opt out of EPA

Dar/Arusha. Despite Tanzania’s recent decision to pull out of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), the European Union (EU) has said it is forging ahead with plans to sign the deal with the East African Community (EAC).

The head of the EU Delegation to Tanzania, Mr Roeland van de Geer, said the decision to sign or not to sign the already negotiated agreement was for the EAC to determine.

“The EU is ready to sign the EPA, and it is hoped that the EAC will also be ready to sign in the near future. That decision is for the EAC and its member states to take,” Mr van de Geer told The Citizen through email.

Tanzania announced last week that it would not sign the EPA during a ceremony scheduled for next week in Nairobi. Tanzania, along with Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi, negotiated the trade agreement with EU for more than a decade before a deal was apparently reached.

Foreign Affairs Permanent Secretary Aziz Mlima said last Friday, that the decision was not based on Britain’s decision to exit the EU, but more specifically on what he described as “national interests.” He said the decision was meant to protect Tanzania’s nascent industries.

Mr van de Geer spoke as the EAC technocrat behind the 14 years of negotiations said he was still optimistic Tanzania would come along. Elsewhere, reports in Kenya said the country’s Foreign Affairs minister, Ms Amina Mohammed, was due in the country to hold talks with the government over its decision. Kenya’s exports to Europe would be hardest hit should the EAC fail to sign the EPA.

That is the same position confirmed by Mr van de Geer in his email to The Citizen. He said trade relations between the EU and Tanzania would not be directly affected by the EPA not being signed as Tanzania enjoys preferential access to the EU as a least developed country.

As a middle income country, Kenya’s exports to the EU would attract up to 25 per cent duty if the EPA is not signed. Access to EU market is different depending on the strength of the local economies.

“It is envisaged that Tanzania will reach the Middle Income Level over the next few years ...and then the different rule will apply,” noted Mr van de Geer.

A top EAC official in Arusha said Tanzania’s failure to sign the EPA would adversely affect the bloc’s trade arrangements with the outside world, and eventually undermine the integration process.

It would cause more inconsistencies for the region that will have to employ different trade regimes with the EU and complicate enforcement of the common external tariffs (CET) for goods entering the region from outside the bloc.

“We are a customs union. When goods enter the region we are subjected to one CET. The agreement cannot work perfectly when one is not there,” said Mr Peter Kiguta, director general of Customs and Trade at the EAC headquarters.