Nicaraguan Issues: Like the other countries of Central America, Nicaragua faces a number of threats from the Agreement.  These are summarised by the WDM:

• significant job losses amongst producers of manufactured goods, many of whom are women who would lose access to decent work opportunities
• reduced government income from trade taxes to invest in decent public services like health and education
• reduced access to cheap medicines for the poorest people
• reduced access to financial services for low income communities and small businesses
• as the country with the most vulnerable economy in the region Nicaragua has pressed hard for a social investment fund

Following on the DR-CAFTA Agreement, which has resulted in a weakening of the trade balance with the US, the Association Agreement threatens to increase Central America’s economic problems.  At the same time, given the economic crisis, there is pressure to accept any agreement.  All of the countries involved are vulnerable, but Nicaragua particularly so because of the relative weakness of its economy.  Daniel Ortega has said: “The EU wants to impose a free trade agreement where the shark eats the sardines.”  When Nicaragua walked out of the talks, it was because the EU had rejected its proposal for an adjustment fund to overcome the economic imbalance between Europe and Central America.  Grassroots movements such as Via Campesina reject the negotiations, seeing them as a way of opening up Central America to free trade to the benefit of the EU, rather than as leading to a real ‘Association.’ 

Further information

An excellent, lengthy and detailed analysis of the tendencies of the negotiations is in a document from Plataforma 2015 Y Más: Europa Global: los verdaderos intereses de la estrategia comercial de la UE para someter a los pueblos a la tiranía del "libre comercio" www.2015ymas.org/?rubrique23&entidad=Textos&id=7260

Plataforma 2015 y Más is a grouping of NGOs, based in Spain.  Their document explains how the negotiations tend towards the opening up of resources to European investment; to encouraging agro-industry (including bananas, but chiefly biofuels: palm oil and sugar) and the corresponding impoverishment of small scale producers who provide food for local consumption. Small-scale fishing would suffer in the same way.  The Association Agreement would therefore endanger food security and the natural environment, with particularly negative consequences for small, indigenous communities.  A particular problem for Nicaragua would be coffee: in 2006, Nicaragua exported 52% of its coffee to Europe (compared with 4.4% for Guatemala and 5.5% for Honduras).  “Flexible” rules on Normas de Origen (Norms of Origin) proposed by the EU would have allowed the EU to export cheaper coffee from Africa, for instance, to Central America.  The Central American asociaciones cafetaleras decided in November 2008 to stay outside the negotiations: but what they need is a very strict Norma de Origen to protect their product from this competition.

The Plataforma Sindical Común Centroamericana put out a resolution on 14 May (http://www.grupsur.eu.org/Resolucion-de-la-Plataforma.html ) expressing its conclusion that the talks were nothing more than free trade negotiations: the themes of political dialogue and cooperation were just a mirage.  Only Nicaragua and Honduras, they said, had initiated national debates about the parameters of these free trade negotiations.  They called on governments to suspend the negotiations and to begin a new negotiation based on principles of clean production and fair trade.  Central American social movements, networks and organisations, meeting on 20 May (http://nicaraguaymasespanol.blogspot.com/2009/05/movimientos-sociales-y-redes-no-al-ada.html ) also called for a suspension of negotiations and for national dialogues to take place.

Grupo Sur, another European grouping of NGOs, put out a statement at the end of March arguing that the negotiations are increasingly taking the form of a European solution to the economic crisis: based on liberal, commercial interests rather than an attempt to meet social needs.  Their analysis therefore meets up with the progressive European complaints about European governments’ domestic policies in response to the crisis.  Faced with this economic crisis, our needs and those of ordinary Central Americans (as so often is the case) are identical. (http://www.gruposur.eu.org )

Campaigning in the UK: The TUC has asked for inclusion of a social-labour chapter, both to protect Central American workers and to overcome “the region’s record of abusing trade union rights”. 

Take action

The World Development Movement (WDM) is asking supporters to email the EU negotiators calling for a delay in the negotiations.  They are particularly focussing on the likely effects on women. 

http://www.wdm.org.uk/stop-europes-unfair-trade-deal-central-america

Other links:
http://www.tjm.org.uk
http://www.waronwant.org