Heads of African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) countries attending the 6th ACP Summit in Accra, were on Wednesday called upon to renounce all interim and comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and resolve to negotiate fresh EPAs on ‘reciprocal goods only’ with the EU. The call came from a coalition of three labour organizations, made up of the African Regional Organization of International Trade Union Confederation (AROITUC), the Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC) and the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL). It came at a time when some ACP countries, including Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire had broken ranks with their sub-regional partners and signed separate interim EPAs with the European Union, which contravened the original intention for EPAs to be signed between the EU on one side and regional bodies within the ACP on the other. Under the interim EPAs, 80 per cent of exports from EU into the developing countries will be on duty-free, tariff-free basis in exchange for 100 per cent market access for developing countries exports to the EU. But Mr. Kwesi Adu-Amankwah, Secretary-General of AROITUC told journalists that the EPAs, as they were now, threatened to completely destroy the production base of the ACP countries and also make it impossible for those countries to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He explained that the 100 per cent market access for developing countries export in the EU was meaningless because those products faced stiff competition from similar heavily subsidized EU-made products. Meanwhile the ACP had supply constraints and could therefore not take full advantage of that offer in the same magnitude the EU companies took advantage of the 80 per cent access to ACP markets. “We therefore call on our heads of states to reclaim the destiny and sovereignty of our countries by taking a collective decision on the EPAs. “This decision must be in two folds – renounce all interim and comprehensive EPAs and resolve to negotiate and agree a non-reciprocal goods only EPAs with the EU,” he said. Source: GNA