The Misconceived Trade Tussle between Nigeria and the EU

Crusoe Osagie writes on the contention over the rejection of certain commodities from Nigeria by the EU, wondering if it was an actual disagreement or a mere misunderstanding exaggerated by the media

Observers of the trade and economic relationship between Nigeria and the European Union (EU) in the past few years would certainly have noticed what many describe and passive hostilities between the European economic bloc and Nigeria.

While the EU wields enormous economic strength and influence both in the European region and the entire world, Nigeria’s power and influence within the African region can only be dismissed by anyone at his own peril.

The EU, made up of countries like France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands among many other first-world nations with great technological and economic might and influence, reputed for the colonisation of most of Africa and beyond, can certainly not be ignored without consequences.

However, a giant of the emerging world like Nigeria, with population racing rapidly towards 200 million people, many of whom are highly skilled and exposed to the workings of the new world must be treated with profound respect because although it has been asleep for very long, the ‘beast’ is more or less now in the region between slumber and full alertness.

For these two great geographical entities, a lot has brought them to gather in the past decades but in the past few of years, a few knotty issues have made tempers flare significantly. The ones that quickly come to mind is Nigeria’s unequivocal ban of homosexuality and other unnatural sexual relationships as well as a major disagreement in the principles of a proposed Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

The EPA, which is the focus of this report, has been a major point of disagreement between Nigeria and the EU. Most nations in Africa have already been convinced by the Europeans that the EPA would do them some economic good, although activists against the partnership say that these EPA-compliant African countries were won over, more or less, by being bullied.

While nations like Ghana, Senegal, Cote d’ Ivorie, Republic of Benin among others have since agreed and are ready to sign the relationship, Nigeria has prevented that from happening because it refused to endorse the agreement which can only be implemented in the real sense, between economic regions and not individual countries.

Recent ‘Face-off’ over EPA? The EU was recently reported to have suspended the export of some agricultural commodities from Nigeria. The food items said to have been banned from entering Europe till June 2016 included cowpea (beans), sesame seeds, melon seeds, dried fish and meat, peanut chips and palm oil.

This would be a major setback for Nigeria, which now desperately needs to expand its export basket in the face of the falling price of crude oil in the international market.

The rejected beans were said to contain between 0.03mg per kilogramme to 4.6mg/kg of dichlorvos pesticide, when the acceptable maximum residue limit is 0.01mg/kg. The embargo was said to be due to the inability to adhere to global standards.

The EU was reported to have repeatedly warned Nigeria that some of their export items constitute danger to human health because they “contain a high level of unauthorised pesticide.” The pesticide is applied when the products are being prepared for export.

The EU was said to have issued 50 notifications to Nigerian beans exporters since January 2013. But Nigerian authorities didn’t take any significant steps to reverse the situation. Likewise, the United Kingdom also issued 13 border rejection alerts to Nigerian beans exporters between January and June 2015. Our lax system will continue to hamper the economy from appropriating the benefits derivable from a revived export programme.

Having said that, some conspiracy theorists explained that all the talk about warnings to Nigeria over contamination of the export commodities were simply a ploy to ‘give a dog a bad name in order to hang it’.

These commentators believe that the EU by their action simply carried out its threat to delist Nigeria from among nations qualified to export products into its region, since the African giant has formed a clog in the wheel of the EU, in its bid to get the EPA fully endorsed and operational.

The tit for tat relationship between the EU and Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, which led to imposition of sanctions on the country at various times and removal of the sanctions when the government yields them some ground has been cited as a reflection of what has now began to happen between Nigeria and the EU.

Nigeria Denies Conflict with EU In an interesting twist of events last week, the federal government stated unequivocally that the strife and angst over the reported economic tension between Nigeria and the EU were mostly based on ignorance and misinformation both in the media and the public.

According to the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr. Sonny Echono, the recent EU ban on the Nigerian goods was blown out of proportion.

“It was an individual who took some beans from Nigeria to an EU country but it was not an export quantity. It is possibly for a Nigerian restaurant in the EU country to do this.

We realised that this particular consignment of beans has been kept for a very long time without proper preservation.”

We have been able to link up with them, we got all of the stakeholders in the sector, such as the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the quarantine service and we met the EU trade mission.

He said an error made by the federal government to remove regulatory agencies at the seaports which led to the removal of the quarantine services, therefore leaving us to rely on the customs to take charge is the major cause of the problem.

According to him, in the reality, the customs are not well trained to test the quality of such import or export commodities. The customs are only there to collect revenues in the form of import, export and other duties.

“We have made a strong case that just like any other countries in the world, we must have our quarantine services both at the seaports or at the airports.

“This is just a case that was overblown because we are not an actually a big time exporter of these particular commodities, in fact we are still looking at ways to meet our local demand.

So, it is not a major crisis and the EU has understood our position and we are taking measures to ensure that this does not happen again,” he said.