Europe risks locking Africa into a poverty-stricken future through unfair trade deals, campaigners claimed today.
Demonstrators from the Trade Matters coalition staged a protest at the German embassy in Dublin as part of a global day of action to increase pressure on the current holder of the EU presidency.
The Trade Matters group, including Trocaire, Christian Aid, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and Oxfam is calling on Germany and its European partners to halt trade deals they believe will place poor countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific in a poverty trap.
"Europe is demanding that poor countries radically open their markets and make new commitments in areas such as investment," said Niamh Garvey of Christian Aid. "This will destroy livelihoods, undermine future economic growth, and deprive countries of the space to regulate to protect people and the environment. This is categorically not the way to help developing countries out of poverty."
The campaign hopes to force the Irish Government to use its influence as an EU member state to redraft European trade deals with developing countries.
"The proposed agreements will not help development — they will make people poorer," said Temwa Gondwe from the Malawi Economic Justice Network, who travelled to Dublin to participate in the demonstration. "Europe is being a bully by insisting on a 2007 deadline. As they stand these deals threaten to undermine poverty reduction and destroy lives across continents."
Thousands of campaigners, workers, farmers and activists across Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific are today staging protests outside German embassies to call for a stop to unfair trade deals between Europe and the developing world.