Jump to navigation

Kenya

Nairobi goes ahead with pioneering Brussels deal

After its neighbours pulled back from the EU plan, Ruto's government is going it alone

President William Ruto's government has signed a trade deal with the European Union which Brussels has described as its most advanced with an African state on climate change and labour rights.

'This momentous step heralds a new era where Kenyan goods gain immediate and permanent duty and quota-free access to the European market. Simultaneously, European goods will also enjoy preferential access to the Kenyan market,' said Trade Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano ahead of the signing ceremony.

There is political capital to be made from trumpeting EU-Kenya relations – which both Brussels and President Ruto have sought to cultivate over the past year – but very little of the EPA is new (Dispatches, 01/02/22, Brussels finds some friends in Nairobi). Most of it was originally negotiated with the now eight-member East African Community (EAC) and was abandoned in 2014 when most of the bloc refused to ratify it.

The text of the Kenya-EU deal will be open for other EAC countries to join. However, other leading countries in the EAC, including Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, insist the terms of the EPA are too advantageous for Brussels.

The EU has sought to negotiate EPAs with most of Africa's regional blocs over the past 20 years but has concluded deals with only a handful of countries.

Several African leaders, business groups and civil society have complained that the EPAs offer little to developing economies which already enjoy preferential trade access and do not encourage the development of African industry and intra-Africa trade.

As the wealthiest EAC member, Kenya does not have duty or quota free access to the EU market. This new trade pact allows Kenya to protect some agricultural products, either by excluding them from tariff cuts or by keeping the option of triggering safeguards in case of sharp and sudden increase of imports from the EU.



Related Articles

DISPATCHES

Brussels finds some friends in Nairobi

Trying to win over Anglophone governments ahead of their grand regional summit, EU officials have been offering deals to Kenya

The European Union wants to agree a 'strategic partnership' with Africa at a summit next month. Now, it has identified Kenya as a key target.

READ FOR FREE

Who fixed the election and how

The first of the two commissions on Kenya’s election crisis – both advocated by former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan and his group of eminent persons –...


Pirates and tanks

The news that the arms onboard the hijacked MV Faina were destined for the Government of Southern Sudan – via Kenyan end-user certificates and covert transport –...


Bad time for an oil boom

Governance issues would be complicated enough if it weren’t also for the arrival of new guests at the feast

Like its neighbours Tanzania and Uganda, Kenya has found that hydrocarbon discoveries require complicated legal and institutional reforms to manage the resource and deal with investors. The incentives...


A question of legitimacy

President Uhuru Kenyatta starts his second term facing street protests, legal challenges to his election, and deep divisions in the electoral commission

Neither side in the over-heated election row looks ready to talk, let alone negotiate. Taking a shot at his opponents for representing the 'politics of darkness' and accusing...

READ FOR FREE