GUY HARRISON: EU-Kenya trade: Getting the facts straight

Earlier this week the Star published an article by Ash Kaur in which she claims that the 'EU is bullying Africa with its Trans Agenda' and that the EU was 'holding a knife to Africa’s neck', along with other false claims expressed in pejorative terms.

Firstly, Kaur, by her own admission, is a finance lawyer and not a trade expert, and, secondly, the claims she makes are simply incorrect:

The Economic Partnership Agreement with the EAC, including with Kenya, contains only trade provisions and a commitment to continued support to Kenya’s economic development. There are no provisions on gender issues, nor on reproductive and health rights, nor on any similar subject.

The negotiations with the EAC were concluded in 2014, after which the text was signed and ratified by Kenya – in other words, agreed to by Kenya. So, on those trade provisions, the EU could not be possibly holding a knife to the EAC’s or Kenya’s neck in 2021.

In fact, this future trade agreement contains provisions on ‘asymmetrical market access’ and ‘economic development’.

In lay language, this means that the EU will grant Kenyan products favourable access to the EU market, whilst Kenya will grant only a very gradual reduction of barriers to access for EU products over a period of 25 years, in order to allow the Kenyan economy to develop its own manufacturing capacities and to protect Kenya’s national market.

The EPA until today has not been implemented as not all partner countries have signed and ratified the agreement, which is a condition for it to enter into force. For the time being, therefore, the EU has granted Kenya duty-free access to the European Common Market on the basis of a unilateral EU regulation.

The EU is currently in the process of agreeing to an interim agreement on the implementation of the EPA with Kenya, after EAC heads of state at their summit in February this year decided that partner countries who wished so could start engagement with the EU on the implementation of the EPA.

This process has now started, after willingness to proceed was expressed on both the Kenyan and the EU sides during the visit of President Uhuru Kenyatta to Brussels in June. This is an agreement that will bring benefits to both sides, but mostly to Kenya.

Incidentally, the UK and Kenya signed an EPA in December 2020, which is based on the EU text agreed in 2014, and even after Brexit the EU remains the biggest export destination for Kenyan goods.

Head of Political and Press, European Union Delegation to Kenya