21 - 27 June 2001
Issue No.539
|
Al-Ahram Weekly Online 21 - 27 June 2001 Issue No.539 |
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Current issue | Previous issue | Site map | ||
June signing
The long-anticipated signing of the Egypt-EU partnership agreement, scheduled for next week, will come as a relief to officials on both sides of the Mediterranean, reports Niveen Wahish from BrusselsThe signing of the Egypt-EU partnership agreement promises finally seems imminent, having been scheduled to take place in Luxembourg during the 25-26 June meeting of the foreign ministers of the 15 member-states of the European Union.
President Hosni Mubarak was briefed yesterday by his economic aides on all issues pertaining to the partnership.
Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher, who begins a visit to the United States today, will arrive in Luxembourg on 25 June for the signing.
Although the agreement was initialled this January, the signing is its official kickoff. It would then need to be ratified by the Egyptian parliament, European parliament as well as the individual parliaments of each of the 15 EU member countries, a process that could take as long as four years.
The signing, which was originally scheduled to take place on 14 May, was postponed at Egypt's request until it prepared a comprehensive plan for the modernisation of national industry and the economy. Following Prime Minister Atef Ebeid's recent request to concerned ministries to submit their reports on how they intend to go about achieving this task, a plan appears to have been completed.
Raouf Saad, Egypt's ambassador to the EU, believes that postponing the signing in May was the right thing to do. "Egypt's economy needs to be at a level whereby it can compete not only with the products of other Mediterranean countries within the EU market, but with European products entering the Egyptian market as well," said Saad.
The call for this plan came at a time in which concerns were raised about potential negative affects of the agreement on Egyptian industry.
Under the agreement, a free trade area will be established between the two signatories whereby the EU is immediately to lift all trade barriers, with the exception of those to agricultural products. Meanwhile, Egyptian barriers to trade are to be lifted over a 12-year period from the date of ratification.
Thus far, the European side has been sympathetic to the Egyptian government's requests to delay the signing. According to Saad, European officials recognise that the Egyptian economy is larger and more complex than those of the other Mediterranean countries with which they have negotiated, or are negotiating, similar pacts.
Nonetheless, Anthony Smallwood, Egypt desk principal administrator at the European Commission's External Relations Directorate-General, asserts: "We are keen that this long process should move on to the next stage and that Egypt be in the club; that it join the other countries whose agreements have already come into force." The EU initiated the negotiation of association agreements with 12 Mediterranean countries within the framework of the Barcelona Process towards establishing free trade among European and Mediterranean countries by 2010.
However, if the signing is postponed yet again, the Europeans may run out of patience. "If the agreement is not signed, a lot of people will question Egypt's commitment [to the partnership]," Smallwood said. He added that the pressures of a free market "will not result from the agreement, since these will happen anyway." He argued that the agreement enables the EU and Egypt to work together to "manage the impact of globalisation which is bound to cause damage to protected industries."
But while the delay in signing the agreement may postpone the exposure of local industries to European competition, it is having the same impact on European investment flows into the region. Saad described the latter as "very modest."
Although many factors affect an investment decision, including assessment of the level of political stability in the region, the fact that the partnership agreement has not been signed "certainly does not help," said Smallwood. He added that European companies need to be sure of Egypt's commitment. Saad expressed a similar view. "The signature on the agreement is the strongest message to European investors," he said, explaining that it provides for a legal framework that would protect the European investor.
Although trade and investment are at the heart of the Egypt-EU association agreement, they are not the only issues. Other aspects of the agreement include a cultural and political dialogue and cooperation on social affairs, including migration and human rights. This final issue is one about which both sides do not entirely see eye-to-eye.
© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved
 |
|
|||||||||||||||||
| ARCHIVES Letter from the Editor Editorial Board Subscription Advertise! |
WEEKLY ONLINE: www.ahram.org.eg/weekly Updated every Saturday at 11.00 GMT, 2pm local time weeklyweb@ahram.org.eg |
 Al-Ahram Organisation |
Recommend this page