Unlocking Electronic Signature Legitimateness for General Partnership Agreement in European Union

How to eSign a document: electronic signature legitimateness for General Partnership Agreement in European Union

welcome to second tech the show that takes a look at the issues beyond the news the EU n 6,000 African country signed an economic partnership agreement in Botswana last week Terrence cream and joins me to discuss the tenure plus journey to the conclusion of the trade talks hi to us what is the static EPA and why was it negotiated with only six southern african countries I tried ascetic the Southern African Development Community EPA but it's only six of the 15 setec members most of them father them are part of the secular South African Customs Union the oldest customs union in the world that South Africa Botswana and the suit to Swaziland in Namibia and then Muslim because decided to also drawing the seta keppa it's the first day / that's the European Union's I've had been able to sign with an African region they've been negotiating as you said in your intro for over 10 years to try and get these this sort of postal I'm a post cotton new agreement which are unilateral trade accession agreements they've been trying to negotiate these with africa caribbean and pacific region they've got one in the caribbean in place in Africa the selic is the first one they claim to be making progress in east africa the east african community but they've also hit snags in the West Africa so this this is now been sawn in cassani Botswana and it really opens away to a sort of a reciprocal trade arrangement although it's very asymmetrical and the way it's been structured so the everyone but South Africa gets duty free quota free access to the 500 million consumer strong European market south africa has a different deal as you said the deal with South Africa differs to the other five why this differential treatment South Africa post the part 8 was treated as a more developed African economy so they won't initially we wanted to get low may but which was the squad to feed do 2 3g free access to the European you know they said we had to develop for that so we entered into talks and in two thousand we signed a free trade agreement the the European South Africa European Union trade and development agreement and that's really being governed our trade relationship with Europe since 2000 and that gives us fairly good access to Europe but we do also give three or four reciprocated to Europe and therefore we didn't really need to enter an upper with with the European Union the reason why we this inter these the talks lights in fact we elected around 2007 was to try and ensure that there wasn't the financial treatment within saku and as much as possible also not differential treatment within Southern African Development Community sector in particular has a common try a trade or tariff regime and therefore we didn't want Europe having a different arrangement with the different members of psycho so it was about harmonization but in the process we also eat at some better trade arrangements with the Europeans mostly on the agricultural front mostly in the area of one we've got a big large quotes I think over a hundred million litres a year to that we can enter Europe duty-free we also got a quote on sugar which is new and we got some benefits around canned fruit we paid for that though in Barra cognizing geographical geographical indicators this has been a long-standing so well desire from the Europeans they have a number of products that they would like recognized and then people don't want people to use those names ranging from champagne port and sherry to things like feta cheese so we recognize over 250 gr European GRS and in return we also had over 100 South African gr is recognized in this effort including huevos honey brush T as well as things like curry lamb and in a number of wines and spirits what happens now and what are the trade priorities for South Africa now we need to go through a process of ratification so the the deal was actually signed in initialed in 2014 subsequent to that there's been two years what they call technical scrubbing so this is a massive amount of work that's got gone under I've been undertaken on the last two years really looking at Terra Flambeau tariff lamb to what was agreed and ensuring that is actually love the case in the agreement so that scrubbing took place ahead of this meeting in casana cassani was chosen symbolically gizzards on the confidence of another number of Southern African countries but two of which what's awana and Namibia are in this deal but it's also very close to the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe so it was a symbolic area to have the signing ceremony and basically now the country's need to take these to take this sound deal to the Parliament for ratification so the six african countries will need to ratify south africa's indicated i'll take a tablet in parliament during june imagine the other African countries will also want to move ahead with the ratification it also needs to go to the European Parliament in Brussels and that that for ratification and I imagine number of the 28 members of the European Union will also need to take it through their Parliament's for ratification so that's the next step I think it's it's really the last mile and then the the new trade regime will come into place and then for South Africa I suppose it releases up the trade negotiation is also for its main priority which is Africa if the trilateral free trade agreements been up the east coast from Cape takara is a high priority we understand that South Africa's made an offer to the east african community as well as to egypt and those need to not be advanced and eventually we'll have a free-trade area over that area over that side of the car eastern side of the continent and then the African Union is very keen that we that the talks advance on a continental free trade agreement so I think those will be our priorities that's seen as our trade blue sky area for South Africa so I think that will be a priority these but we'll still need to nurture relationship with Europe a very important trading partner it's still our biggest number one as a block trading partner with China's are my biggest single individual country trading partner and then you can obviously see that you know in with a go earlier in the year there's also a lot of resources that had to be dedicated to that sorting out South Africa's continual continued beneficiary status so I think with Europe and America sort of now bedded down there will be a lot more resources that can be dedicated to the African trade agenda thank you that's the second text show for this week thank you for watching and join us again next time for more news analysis you