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European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Central Africa Interim Economic Partnership Agreement) Order 2010

My Lords, I, too, wish to thank my noble friend for presenting these orders for approval and join in the support for the two orders. I thank the opposition spokesman for his points and questions. I associate myself with some of them in respect of future arrangements. The European Union is making process in doing deals that are equitable for these countries, which are still very poor, but it does take time. The Lomé convention had many imperfections, but at least some progress was made. It was succeeded by the Cotonou agreement, which made still further strides, but I think the EPA system is better, because it can deal with segmental differences and the isolation of a particular product in more detail, which is a good thing. I, too, would be interested to speculate with the Minister whether other countries, not just Cameroon, will join in the central African part of the first order. A large number of countries were involved, and it would be interesting, if the Minister had time, briefly to enunciate why those negotiations with other countries did not go ahead and why they decided not to pursue that. There is still some feeling in west Africa that these agreements are inherently unfair and unbalanced. That is an over-exaggerated impression; the European Union is definitely trying to do something more for these countries, genuinely and sincerely—but there are still those anxieties. Will the Minister, if she has time, speculate a little, although not too long, on the political situation in both countries? Unrest can of course delay economic progress. On the Côte d’Ivoire order, I presume that having the same list of products that will come from the EU as imports into Côte d’Ivoire, as in the central Africa agreement, is a sign of making these negotiations uniform. Presumably in future there will be significant differences. In the mean time, we wish these countries well in their development. They are not really significant for United Kingdom exports, and for imports to them. We are very marginal in both those places. Whether that is a good idea or not I do not know, but there has been a habit for it to be dominated by the French and, to a lesser extent, the Germans, Dutch and Belgians. I hope that in future there will be more British business activity in these countries and the rest of west Africa. I agree with the opposition spokesman that an all-territorial agreement for all the countries would be a very good achievement in future.