[R-G] [BillTottenWeblog] Protect and Survive

[Bill Totten]

Peter Mandelson is bullying the world's poorest nations into following a
development route that can't work.

by George Monbiot

Published in the Guardian (September 08 2008)


It is not often that a bureaucrat makes a major scientific discovery. So
hats off to Peter Power. The European Commission's spokesperson for
trade, writing to the Guardian last week, has invented a new ecological
concept: excess fish. Seeking to justify policies which would ensure
that European trawlers are allowed to keep fishing in West African
waters, Mr Power claims that they will be removing only the region's
"excess stocks" {1}. Well, someone has to do it. Were it not for our
brave trawlermen battling Nature's delinquent productivity, the seas
would become choked with these disgusting scaly creatures.

Power was responding to the column I wrote a fortnight ago, which showed
how fish stocks have collapsed and the people of Senegal have gone
hungry as a result of plunder by other nations. The Economic Partnership
Agreement the EC wants Senegal to sign would make it much harder for
that country to keep our boats out of its waters. Power maintains that
"the question of access to Senegalese waters by EU fleets ... is not
part of these trade negotiations".

This is a splendid example of strategic stupidity. No one is claiming
that there is a specific fish agreement for Senegal. But the EC's demand
that European companies have the right to establish themselves freely on
African soil and to receive "national treatment" would ensure that
Senegal is not allowed to discriminate between its own businesses and
foreign firms. It would then be unable to exclude European boats. Is
this really too much for a well-paid bureaucrat to grasp?

After that column was published, several people wrote to suggest that
the problem is worse than I thought. Senegal's fish crisis is part of a
bitterly ironic story. As Felicity Lawrence shows in her book Eat Your
Heart Out, the people of Senegal have become dependent on fishing partly
because of the collapse of farming {2}. In 1994, Senegal was forced to
remove its trade taxes. This allowed the EU to dump subsidised tomatoes
and chicken on its markets, putting its farmers out of business. They
moved into fishing at about the same time as the European super-trawlers
arrived, and were wiped out again. So fishing boats were instead
deployed to carry economic migrants out of Senegal. Lawrence discovered
that those who survive the voyage to Europe are being employed in
near-slavery by ... the subsidised tomato industry.

But this is just one aspect of a scandal which has been missed by almost
every journalist in the UK. While we have been fretting about house
prices and the Big Brother final, the European trade commissioner, Peter
Mandelson, has been seeking to impose new trade agreements on 76 of the
world's poorest countries: the African, Caribbean and Pacific nations
(ACP). Posing as "instruments for development", the Economic Partnership
Agreements threaten to beggar them.

The people of these countries know that trade is essential to pull them
out of poverty. But they also see that unless it is conducted fairly it
impoverishes them more. Many are aware that the European equation of
fair trade with free trade is nonsense.

Neoliberal economists claim that rich countries got that way by removing
their barriers to trade. Nothing could be further from the truth. As
Ha-Joon Chang shows in his book Kicking Away the Ladder, Britain
discovered its enthusiasm for free trade only after it had achieved
economic dominance {3}. The industrial revolution was built on
protectionism: in 1699, for example, we banned the import of Irish
woollens; in 1700 we banned cotton cloth from India. To protect and
develop our infant industries, we imposed ferocious tariffs (trade
taxes) on almost all manufactured goods.

By 1816 the US had imposed a 35% tax on most imported manufactures,
which rose to fifty per cent in 1832. Between 1864 and 1913 it was the
most heavily protected nation on earth; and the fastest-growing. It
wasn't until after the Second World War, when it had already become top
dog, that it dropped most of its tariffs. The same strategy was followed
by Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and almost every other country that is
rich today. Within the ACP nations, the great success story of the past
thirty years is the country whose protectionism has been fiercest:
during the 1980s and 1990s, Mauritius imposed import tariffs of up to
eighty per cent {4}. Protectionism, which can be easily exploited by
corrupt elites, does not always deliver wealth; but development is much
harder without it.

Mandelson's attempt to deprive the poor nations of these strategies is
just one of the injustices he is trying to impose. While he wants the
ACP countries to eliminate tariffs on the import of almost all goods,
Europe will sustain its farm subsidies. In combination, these policies
could put millions out of work.

As Oxfam shows, he's also negotiating to let European corporations
muscle out local firms and to make privatisation legally irreversible,
threatening people's access to health, education, water and banking. The
ACP countries would be forbidden to impose tough capital controls during
a financial crisis: the need for European companies to get their money
out takes precedence over the economic survival of the poor. He wants
them to adopt a plant-breeding treaty which bans farmers from saving
their own seeds {5}.

Mandelson tried to force all this through by last December, warning the
ACP that if they didn't sign up by then, world trade rules would ensure
that they lost their preferential trading status with Europe. The UN
trade adviser Dr Dan Gay tells me that people in the talks between the
EC, Fiji and Papua New Guinea claim that "Mandelson shouted
'neo-colonial-style' at ministers, suggesting that they were so
incompetent that they had to rely on foreign advisers" {6}. Mandelson's
office says he "did express the wish to negotiate with ministers
present, rather than their advisers. However, he did not shout
'neo-colonial style' at anyone." {7}

Either way, there is no question that the ACP countries have been
bullied. In December their trade ministers published a joint statement
deploring "the enormous pressure that has been brought to bear on the
ACP States by the European Commission" {8}. Over half of them refused to
sign anything. The rest initialled draft agreements. Peter Mandelson is
still twisting arms, trying to force the treaties through as quickly as
possible. Last week the Caribbean heads of state were due to commit
themselves, but pulled back at the last minute: tomorrow they hold a
meeting to decide what to do next. I hope they have the balls to tear
the whole thing up and start again.

If the aim of these negotiations had been to enrich European companies
at the expense of the poor, Peter Mandelson would have done well. If, as
the commission claims, the partnership agreements are "primarily
conceived as an instrument for development" {9}, his interventions have
been disastrous. He appears to have pursued these talks in the style of
a 21st Century viceroy: no humanitarian concern is allowed to obstruct
commercial interests.

In the short term, and within a limited frame of reference, the
commission's tactics might enhance our self-interest. But we are better
than this. If the people of Europe knew what was being done in their
name, I doubt that one in ten would support it.

www.monbiot.com

References:

1. Peter Power, 4th September 2008. Trade: one size doesn't fit all. The
Guardian.

2. Felicity Lawrence, 2008. Eat Your Heart Out. Penguin, London.

3. Ha-Joon Chang, 2002. Kicking Away the Ladder. Anthem Press, London.

4. Oxfam, 21st April 2008. Partnership or Power Play? Briefing Paper
110.
http://www.oxfam.org/files/bp110_europe_EPAs_trade_deals_with_acp_countries_0804.pdf

5. ibid.

6. Dan Gay, pers comm.

7. Michael Jennings, Press Officer for Trade, Economic Commission, pers
comm.

8. The ACP Council of Ministers, 13th December 2007. Declaration
Expressing Serious Concern on the Status of the Negotiations of the
Economic Partnership Agreements.
http://www.acp-eu-trade.org/index.php?loc=epa/AllACP-2.php

9. European Commission, 8th August 2008. Economic Partnership
Agreements: A New Approach in EU-ACP Trade Relations.
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/issues/bilateral/regions/acp/index_en.htm

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/09/09/protect-and-survive/


TO POST A COMMENT, OR TO READ COMMENTS POSTED BY OTHERS, please click
on the word "comment" highlighted at the end of the version of this
essay posted at http://billtotten.blogspot.com/