The European Union has no intentions of hurting the development agenda of developing countries, European Commission official Liselotte Isahsson, has said. Speaking to the dailyEXPRESS in an interview Ms. Isahsson said the Commission will not deliberately propose nor impose policies on developing countries that will not enhance their developments. She said the European Union has had a healthy relationship with most developing nations, including Ghana for several decades, and will not adopt policies that will have adverse effects on the already overburdened population. Citing the EPA to buttress her point, Liselotte Isahsson said arguments put forward by opponents that it will lead to huge job losses are not entirely accurate. She said the policy will rather enhance trade between Europe and countries within the Africa Carribean and Pacific countries including Ghana. “The EU is determined to have the economies of countries like Ghana develop through the agreement.” Agreements covering the EPA say ACP countries would be required to open up their markets to European goods and EU countries would be required to do same. As part of the agreement, according to the EU, certain goods from ACP countries will not be affected by trade barriers, but the countries are required to carry out appropriate reforms in their polices to strengthen capacities and reduce their transaction cost. The agreement was expected to take effect in the first week of January, 2008. Ghana has already signed what government officials describe as ‘EPA Light’ which campaign group Third World Network officials say is no different from the EPA itself. Their argument is that the EPA, which they likened to previous failed policies like the Structural Adjustement Programme by both the IMF and the World Bank, will end up killing local businesses and increasing the rate of unemployment in the country. For example the British NGO Banana Link, which is campaigning for fair trade deals for banana producers in developing countries, say the EPA will spell doom for poor farmers in developing countries. Alistair Smith is the organisation’s representative in France. He told the dailyEXPRESS the EPA will create huge levels of unemployment should Ghana go ahead to implement it. According to him, the EU is trying hard to use its economic power to muscle developing countries into signing the agreement. The banana farmers in Ghana, Mr. Smith said, have already began feeling the pinch, as more and more labour force will soon be cut . He said the absence of proper and effective labour groups mean workers who lose their jobs will not have the opportunity of having their concerns addressed, since multinational companies will always find an easy way of twisting the arms of governments. Liselotte Isahsson however says the EPA can’t be kept in the same league as that of policies that did not achieve the intended results. According to her, the EPA rather creates opportunity for better trade and equitable access to European markets by goods from developing countries. On the question of aid for trade she said the EU will not interfere with individual country’s decisions to channel the received aids into any project likely to benefit the population. She however mentioned that a certain level of supervision will be carried out to ensure that the money is fully applied for the specific jobs and mismanagement is avoided. Source: dailyEXPRESS