The European Commission on Monday stood by a plan for new economic deals with poor countries that has come under fire from some developing nations, aid campaigners and now also from British ministers.
Brussels is negotiating trade and investment agreements with nearly 80 countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group that are mostly former European colonies.
They would replace a system that gives preferential access for ACP exports to Europe. It must be halted from 2008 after being struck down by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Some ACP countries are worried the new agreements will focus too much on carving open their markets for European companies.
"We have no mercantilist objectives in these talks and we should reassure the ACP on this count," European trade chief Peter Mandelson told EU trade and development ministers, adding Brussels would show the "maximum flexibility".
"But we should not empty the agreements of their development value by giving up now on ambition," he said, saying economic growth in poor countries was the key to easing poverty. But two British ministers, in an open letter to the ministers meeting in Luxembourg, expressed concern about the talks and called for developing countries to be given "as much time as they reasonably need to open their own markets".
A British official said that meant up to 20 years. The letter also said poor countries needed to be able to stop subsidised EU farm exports undermining home-grown products and Europe must not force ACP countries to negotiate rules on investment, competition and government procurements. The letter was signed by Gareth Thomas and Ian McCartney, British development and trade ministers respectively.
Last week, the ACP's chairwoman, Barbados trade minister Dame Billie Miller, told the Financial Times that the EU viewed the new agreements as being purely about trade, not development. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso denied the agreements would lack development aid.
"I don't think it's very useful at this time (to have) some kind of theoretical discussion (about whether we need) more aid or trade. We need both," Barroso told reporters in London. The debate comes as hopes have faded for a global trade deal which was designed to boost exports and ease poverty.
Parallel to the ACP talks, the EU's 25 countries plan to increase annual spending on aid for roads, ports and other projects to help poor countries' exports to 1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), matching a European Commission contribution.
The EU ministers meeting in Luxembourg on Monday agreed to draw up a strategy for delivery of those funds. The EU ministers in Luxembourg will separately give a green light on Tuesday for to nearly 17 billion euros in aid for poor countries between 2007 and 2013, part of the EU's central budget of 864.4 billion euros allocated for the period.
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