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NGOs call for a moratorium on Euromed trade liberalisations negociations
BRUSSELS/MARRAKECH, March 23, 2006 - On the eve of the EuroMed trade Ministerial meeting in Marrakech on Friday, six major networks of Euro Mediterranean environmental NGOs warned that the currently planned trade liberalization in the region can cause widespread adverse social and environmental impacts for Mediterranean partner countries with no significant economic welfare benefits foreseen for either these countries or the EU.
In a letter sent on March 14 to participating Euromed trade ministers and EU Commissioners (1), the European Environmental Bureau, ENDA, Friends of the Earth MedNet, MEDForum, the Mediterranean Information Office for Environment, Culture and Sustainable Development and WWF Mediterranean Programme have called for a moratorium on Euromed trade liberalisation negotiations pending final recommendations of the ongoing Sustainability Impact Assessment of the Euromed Free Trade Area.
The Euro Mediterranean trade ministers will discuss market access for agricultural products and services and liberalisation of these sensitve sectors. The NGOs reminded them that a high percentage of the south Mediterranean's poorest people live in rural areas and depend on agriculture for part or all of their income. The Friends of the Earth MedNet Coordinator Eugene Clancy said, "For most farmers, local markets are far more important than international ones and therefore it is essential for them to be able to sell their products locally. However, Mediterranean agricultural trade liberalization will open these local markets to cheap imported products. This will have disastrous effects on family farmers and may fuel a large-scale rural exodus to urban slums."
Regarding the initiation of Euro-Mediterranean trade liberalization negotiations in services, experience around the world of services liberalization-and-privatization give reason for Mediterranean citizens to be concerned about diminishing access to essential services such as water, health, education, energy etc., including the deterioration of their quality. As well as associated job losses, job insecurity, curtailment of workers' rights, decline in real wages and increased demands in labour flexibility.
The EuroMed NGOs argued that essential services, such as water, energy, education and health, whose access is important for human development and women's empowerment, must be excluded from the trade liberalization negotiations in services.
Manchester University is carrying out an independent Sustainability impact assessment of the EuroMed Free trade Area (SIA-EMFTA) to examine the potential impacts of proposed trade liberalisation measures on sustainable development in the region. The SIA phase II report (http://www.sia-trade.org/emfta) identifies some social and environmental impacts that may be significantly adverse unless effective mitigating action is taken. The report enumerates a number of mitigation measures that in particular the non-EU Mediterranean countries need to take to avoid the adverse impacts predicted above. These countries will have to take a long list of very costly measures to avoid or at least minimise the adverse social and environmental impacts previewed.
Given that only an extremely modest welfare gain (as measured by GDP % increase) is expected in the region from the setting up of the free trade area in the form it is foreseen currently, NGOs question the prevailing rhetoric, which says that the EMFTA will deliver the EuroMed partnership goals of peace, stability and prosperity to the region.
Contact:
FoE MedNet Coordinator Eugene Clancy on +34 965 652 932 mednet@foeeurope.org
Notes:
(1) See the letter here: http://www.foeeurope.org/publications/2006/letter_trade_minister_euromed_14_March_06.pdf
