“Developing countries have a gun pointed at their chest – either they sign or their market access to the EU is restricted,” says Ska Keller, a German member of the European Parliament who is appalled at the way the European Union brokered a trade agreement with east Africa late last year.
In this case the gun was pointed at Kenya – more specifically, its cut flowers industry. The flower business is a lucrative one, worth more than €10bn (£7.7bn) worldwide every year, and Kenya is one of the world’s largest exporters of cut stems. So it was a crushing blow when Europe imposed tariffs on Kenya’s cut flowers in October last year, potentially making their blooms significantly more expensive than those grown on European soil. Rather than risk losing trade to other suppliers, Kenyan flower companies absorbed the duties. In the three months they were in place, the Kenya Flower Council estimates that its exporters racked up costs of about €3m (£2.3m).
Kenya was being punished for failing to sign a new trade agreement. As the cut flower industry started to feel the pain, Nairobi snapped and signed on the dotted line. The EU removed the duties on Christmas Day, meaning Kenya’s flower exporters have a clean run up to Valentine’s Day. Lodewijk Briet, the EU’s ambassador to Kenya, said in a statement that the EU had “fast-tracked” approval of the deal and called it a “Christmas gift for Kenyan exporters”.
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