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Gaddafi issues warning to EU over African trade

30 November 2010 04:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi warned the European Union on Monday that Africa would turn to other trade partners if the EU kept trying to dictate to the continent how it should develop, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
Gaddafi’s warning, at an EU-Africa summit attended by senior European officials, echoed complaints from some other African leaders who say Europe is trying to make them open their borders to trade but not giving enough in return.
"Our choice now is to cooperate with our brothers in the European Union but if that cooperation fails, Africa has other choices," Gaddafi said in opening remarks at the summit in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
"Africa can look to any other international bloc such as Latin America, China, India or Russia."
A leaked internal document from the African Union this month showed some governments on the continent felt that trade deals being offered by the EU were one-sided.
It said the bloc was asking African countries to liberalize their economies to comply with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules but was not doing enough to help them develop their own economies.
"We do not benefit from the WTO and we call for its abolition," Gaddafi said. "All its interests are in opening our borders for industrial goods and killing national industries in the Third World, so I call (on everybody) not to join it."
He also took a swipe at the EU’s practice of linking economic assistance to African countries’ respect for human rights and good governance.
"We are not interested in political power. We want economic development," he said. "What is the meaning of human rights? What is the meaning of good governance?"
In his own speech to the summit, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy defended the bloc’s policy on Africa.
"In a highly interdependent world economy, there are no easy recipes. But I am convinced that we can find ways of mutually beneficial cooperation, notably via the private sector.
"We need to transcend the state dependent economies which have performed so poorly over decades of development cooperation," Van Rompuy said.
He said in Europe’s experience, economic prosperity and good governance were closely linked.
"The dynamics of prosperity set in where business-friendly policies attract private investment, where corruption is not tolerated, where the rule of law is respected and transparency valued," he said.