Joint Assembly of the Convention concluded between the African, Caribbean and Pacific States and the European Union (ACP-EU) - Resolutions adopted on South Africa (ACP-EU/2144/97/fin.)

The ACP-EU Joint Assembly,

- meeting in Brussels from 17 to 20 March 1997,

- recalling its previous resolutions on the state of bilateral negotiations on future relations between South Africa and the European Union,

A. recognizing the continuing levels of poverty and underdevelopment which remain in South Africa as legacies of the apartheid era,

B. welcoming the commencement of formal negotiations between the EU and South Africa to conclude a series of agreements relating to trade, fisheries, wine and spirits and qualified Lomé accession at the beginning of this year, and considering that the content of these agreements should reflect the strong political statements of support both for South Africa and for Southern Africa made by the EU on the 19th April 1994 and in the Berlin Declaration of September 1994,

C. welcoming the statement made by the EU, further to those negotiations, supporting the concept of a phased Trade and Development Agreement with South Africa, and convinced that any EU-South Africa trade agreement should be based on a recognition of the different sizes and levels of development of the EU and the South African economies and on the relative importance of each partner in the others trade,

D. noting that substantial progress has been made in the negotiations on the accession of South Africa to the Lomé Convention since the South African government presented its negotiating mandate that envisages a trade and development agreement,

E. recognizing that while the EU list of product exclusions constitutes only 4 % of total imports from South Africa, it constitutes around 40 % of the products through which South Africa could benefit from a FTA agreement,

F. concerned by the introduction of a 'conditional linkage` between the approval of the Lomé Protocol for South Africa by the EU and progress in negotiations to conclude an EU/South Africa fisheries agreement,

G. fully supporting efforts to ensure that any agreements reached should take into account their impact on the Southern African region, and in particular on the other members of the Southern African Customs Union and the Southern African Development Community,

H. concerned at the delay in releasing the results of the study financed by the Commission on the regional implications of the EU-South Africa trade negotiations,

I. deeply concerned by the income losses being generated throughout the Southern African beef industry by subsidised exports of EU beef to South Africa, and noting that, as a result of those subsidies, the customs cleared price for EU beef is approximately half the South African wholesale price,

1. Calls on the EU Council to support the approval of the protocol of accession agreed by South Africa and the Commission's negotiating team;

2. Asks the European Commission negotiating team to take all the necessary steps to have the negotiations on the accession of South Africa to the Lomé Convention concluded by the ACP-EU Council of Ministers meeting of 24-25 April 1997 in Luxembourg;

3. Calls for greater asymmetry of content to be built into any EU-South Africa reciprocal trade agreement;

4. Calls upon the General Affairs Council of the EU to reject all forms of linkage and to approve the long overdue Lomé Protocol for South Africa's accession to the Lomé Convention so as to make accession possible at the forthcoming April ACP/EU Joint Council Meeting in order to take advantage of Article 364 of the Lomé Convention;

5. Calls upon the EU to grant South Africa the right to bid for contracts from both the 7th and the 8th EDF funds;

6. Calls upon the ACP-EU Customs Cooperation Committee, in the context of the rules on cumulation, to clearly and rapidly define the phrase 'ad hoc` in a manner which promotes increased regional investment flows from South into Southern Africa;

7. Calls upon the Commission to make available to all Joint Assembly members copies of the study on the regional implications of the EU-South Africa trade negotiations;

8. Calls upon the Commission to make concrete proposals so that adjustment costs borne by the BLNS countries as a result of a reciprocal EU-South Africa trade agreement can be fully addressed;

9. Believes that, in the interests of balanced regional development in Southern Africa, tariff elimination should only be introduced after tariffs have been eliminated on imports from neighbouring SADC countries, in order to ensure neighbouring countries gain the full benefits of duty free access to the South African market;

10. Calls upon the Commission to pay close attention to the question of the sequencing of tariff elimination in its approach to the current trade negotiations with South Africa;

11. Calls upon EU Agricultural Ministers to cease providing export subsidies on EU beef exports to South Africa in line with the South African Government's request of August 1996;

12. Instructs its Co-Presidents to forward this resolution to the ACP-EU Council, to the Commission and the Government of South Africa.