WT/REG382/2  
10 October  2018 
(18-6197) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements  Original:  English/Spanish  
 
  
ECONOMIC PARTNERSHIP  AGREEMENT BETWEEN T HE EUROPEAN UNION AN D GHANA 
(GOODS)  
QUESTIONS AND REPLIE S 
 The following communication, dated 9 October  2018, is being circulated at the request of the 
delegations of the European Union and Ghana.  
 
_______________  
 
 
Questi on from the delegation of Chile  
 
Global safeguards  
Paragraphs 3.25 and 3.26, page 14 of the presentation  
 
1.1. In Article 24, the Parties agree that, subject to the provisions of Article 24 they 
maintain their rights to adopt measures in accordance with Article XIX of the  GATT  1994, 
the WTO Agreement on Safeguards and Article 5 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture. 
(9) This provision shall not be subject to the dispute settlement pr ovisions of the 
Agreement.  
 Notwithstanding the commitment to the relevant WTO Agreements, the EU shall, 
considering the overall development objectives of the Agreement and the small size of 
Ghana's economy, exclude imports from Ghana from any measure take n pursuant to 
Article XIX of the GATT 1994, the WTO Agreement on Safeguards and Article 5 of 
the WTO  Agreement on Agriculture for five years from the date of entry into force of the 
Agreement . Not later than 120 days before the end of the five years, the E PA Committee 
shall review the operation of these provisions in the light of the development needs of 
Ghana, with a view to extending their application.  
With respect to the EU's exclusion of imports from Ghana from any measure it takes 
pursuant to Article XIX of the GATT 1994, the WTO Agre ement on Safeguards and Article  5 
of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, could the EU indicate whether it has extended or 
plans to extend to least -developed country (LDC) Members the exclusion from the 
application of global safeguards . 
 
 Internal comment : In Article 9 of the Agreement on Safeguards, flexibilities are 
granted to developing countries, a group that includes LDCs . One of those flexibilities is 
the exclusion of developing countries from global safeguards applied b y other Members.  
 
 According to paragraph 3.26 of the factual presentation, quoted above, the EPA 
between the EU and Ghana would exclude Ghana from safeguard measures taken by the 
EU for five years from the date of entry into force of the EPA, with the pos sibility of that 
time-period being extended.  
 
 Given the WTO rulings on the exclusion of trading partners from safeguard 
measures, this commitment under the EU -Ghana EPA could be considered inconsistent 
with the Agreement on Safeguards.  
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   Bearing in mind t hat this exclusion is based on a consideration of "the overall 
development objectives of the Agreement and the small size of Ghana's economy" – 
without any reference to whether or not Ghana meets the percentage requirements set 
out in Article 9 with respec t to the share of imports it accounts for in the importing 
Member (in this case the EU), if the exclusion is available only to Ghana (which is not an 
LDC Member) and is not available to LDC Members, or if it were available only to those 
Members that had ag reements with the EU and not to LDCs as a group (or whatever group 
of countries the EU considered to be below a certain level of development), this would 
constitute discrimination contrary to WTO rules . 
 
Response from the delegation of the European Union  
 
 The EU temporar ily excludes the application of multilateral safeguard measures pursuant to 
Article XIX GATT in its Economic Partnership Agreements for a period of five years, beginning with 
the date of entry into force of the Agreement. At this stage, it has no concrete plans to extend such 
an exclusion to other least -developed WTO Members. In any event, imports from least -developed 
countries would be in principle generally excluded as they tend to remain below the WTO 3% 
de-minimis  threshold or remain cum ulatively below the 9% threshold.  
 
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