2024-02-10 08:04:17
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The announcement of the withdrawal of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger from ECOWAS has hit the headlines in recent days. The former Ambassador, specialist in international issues, Jean-Pierre EDON analyzes the causes, consequences and challenges that the authorities of his three countries want to face. From his point of view, withdrawal from the organization is not the right formula. “This decision has serious consequences for countries which, moreover, are landlocked. The withdrawal of the community leads to difficulties, even suffering, for industrialists and farmers. [produits de cru], traders and populations of these countries, because of the resulting customs taxes and the shrinking of the market for their export products due to lack of competitiveness,” analyzes Jean-Pierre EDON. For the diplomat, instead of withdrawing from the community, these countries united within the AES would simply have suspended their participation in the organization for one or two years as a manifestation of their discontent due to the sanctions.
Ambassador Jean-Pierre A EDON
THE REAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WITHDRAWAL OF THREE SAHELIAN COUNTRIES FROM THE ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATES
The event that has hit the headlines recently is undoubtedly the announcement of the withdrawal of three Sahelian countries from ECOWAS. How did we arrive at this extreme at a time when the general trend is towards the creation of large groups to meet the challenges of the century? What assessment can we make of it?
This decision came as a surprise to some regional and international players. But for attentive observers of the West African political situation, this is not surprising, it was to be expected. In the same way that the probable rupture of relations with the UEMOA will not be a surprise. However, its consequences on socio-economic life are not negligible.
Some implications of this decision
A non-exhaustive overview of the implications of this act is as follows in terms of community favors and gains that these countries will now lose. This is the loss of:
- Arrangements to facilitate transit between these countries and coastal States
- Advantages linked to cost stability with regard to customs escorts and transit supervision for goods intended for them.
- Advantages granted by regional insurance, which will raise the question of the treatment of trucks from these countries circulating in the ECOWAS area. Vehicle insurance and the community brown card will no longer be possible.
- Gains linked to preferential taxation in the ECOWAS region of raw products and manufactured products from these Sahelian countries.
- Exemptions from payment of entry duties for their exports into the countries of the community.
- Benefits arising from community projects such as the quality of transport infrastructure sometimes depending on regional projects as well as the condition of roads in regional corridors.
- Reasonable and relatively low costs of international inter-bank funds transfers when ordering goods.
- Free movement of people, goods and services. Better still, nationals of these countries will be deprived of the benefit of the passport which is a community document.
- Organizational support in different forms for the restoration of order and tranquility when peace and security are threatened.
In short, the withdrawal of the community leads to difficulties, even suffering, for industrialists, farmers [produits de cru]traders and populations of these countries, because of the resulting customs impositions and the shrinking of the market for their export products due to lack of competitiveness.
From the above it appears that this decision has serious consequences for countries which, moreover, are landlocked. Fortunately, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982 ensures the right of international transit to countries without a maritime frontage.
Apart from this convention, these countries now have an interest in concluding bilateral agreements with those of the ECOWAS region in different areas to cushion the effect of the implications on their economies. A good functioning of the Alliance of Sahel States {AES} could also help to curb the difficulties somewhat, without compensating for the losses.
In our opinion, instead of withdrawing from the community, it would be better to simply suspend their participation in the organization for 1 or 2 years as a manifestation of their discontent due to the sanctions. Withdrawal from the organization is not the right formula and it is not late to review it.
Indeed, there is reason to fear that populations will have difficulty supporting the increase in the price of basic necessities in the short term. The question then arises of knowing the motives for this decision.
The meaning and context of this act
In fact this decision is a reaction, a response to the organization’s sanctions and a way of getting around them. This consideration leads us to reflect on the fundamental texts of the organization which provide for sanctions in the event of the constitutional order being called into question. But the letter and spirit of the laws allow for a reasonable and humanitarian application, which was not the case for Niger, for example.
Indeed, how can we justify that because of a military coup, an organization takes sanctions which have the effect of starving millions of citizens who have nothing to do with the coup d’état, to deprive them of electrical energy and medicine, to cause the death of several people due to sudden social and economic difficulties.
In addition to the disapproval of the sanctions, although they comply with the provisions of the organization’s texts, the citizens and authorities of the said countries seem to see an invisible hand behind these punitive measures. They take as proof the derogatory, arrogant, threatening comments and behavior devoid of the slightest diplomatic language on the part of certain West African and foreign authorities.
An in-depth analysis of current events in Africa in general, and in the Western region in particular, allows us to realize that beyond military coups, the visible part of the iceberg, beyond the need for rapid return to constitutional order, there is the observation that Africa is changing.
This is also the perception of the former French minister, Rama Yade, who recently declared that< l’Afrique est en transition et au travail. Les Africains sont en train d’expérimenter une nouvelle phase de leur émancipation. L’Afrique a changé >>. Africa is indeed in the midst of change and this is the meaning of current events in the three Sahel countries.
Their exit from the regional organization is a highly political decision which resembles a revolution without fanfare. This would be part of the current questioning of the balance of power in the world and the rejection of the old international order. One of its manifestations is the emergence in force of the BRICS, the G7 and G20 no longer able to properly manage the concerns of the world.
To fully understand the situation in the Sahel, it must be placed in its real context characterized by the firm desire to fight poverty, to put an end to the terrorism which has been raging there for more than ten years, and to exercise full sovereignty over the management of mining and oil resources, as well as other subsoil riches. It is about giving ourselves the means for true independence and promoting the rebirth of culture by erasing as much as possible certain traces of the colonial past.
This is the reason why the paradigm shift in the relations of these countries with external partners becomes a necessity, in the same way as adaptation to the new current which embraces the world and whose current manifestations almost everywhere are only epiphenomena.
The patriotic feeling that animates the leaders of these Sahelian states is noble, but it calls for vigilance because hostile forces from inside and outside will put up resistance. It then becomes necessary and appropriate to prioritize the policy of good neighborliness, to be realistic in government actions, to avoid extremist positions, bearing in mind that no country can live in autarky and that philanthropy is not appropriate in international relations. There is therefore hope for the return of these countries to the community home in the years to come.
Jean-Pierre EDON
Ambassador, specialist in international issues
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