By MICHAEL ONUOHA
RECENTLY, UK citizens voted to leave the European Union (EU) in a referendum called by the British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron. The referendum, which was held on Friday June 24, was to give millions of UK citizens the opportunity to decide whether or not the UK should leave or remain in the EU, the world’s foremost economic union.
The ‘Leave’ vote was much against the counsel of many powerful political and economic leaders and institutions including the US President, Barack Obama, who delivered a stark threat that England on its own would fall to the “back of the queue” if it tried to negotiate trade deals with the United States.
The reasons put forward by the ‘leave’ campaigners that yielded the current referendum outcome are well known and included the assertion that by being a member of the EU, UK surrendered her sovereignty to the EU headquartered in Brussels and by that, her rights to act alone in her own best interests. Others included the need for the UK to have greater control over her own laws and regulations, greater freedom to make her own global trade deals and the opportunity for the UK to control EU migrants, especially the unskilled ones, who the UK is obliged to accept under the EU treaty. The case stated above was of course stoutly countered by the ‘Stay’ campaigners but majority of Britons did not care. At the end, the ‘Leave’ campaigners had their day.
The ‘Leave’ vote has caused so many ripples around the globe with concerns about the continued existence of the EU. There are clamours already in Germany and France for referendum similar to the Brexit to be organised in those two countries. While analysts do not believe the EU is about to break up, the Brexit vote would certainly force reforms in the union to address some of the concerns raised by the ‘Leave’ campaigners.
The outcome of the UK referendum is likely to challenge the concept of globalization and regional integration. Globalisation and regional integration arose from the ashes of World War 2 to challenge the pre-existing world order based on the classical concept of sovereign states. The old global political and economic order was based on the concept of sovereign states as defined in the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia. The Westphalia state system saw power and autonomy residing in the nation-state. Regional integration, as defined by Wikipedia, is “a process in which neighbouring states enter into an agreement in order to upgrade cooperation through common institutions and rules….The degree of integration depends upon the willingness and commitment of independent sovereign states to share their sovereignty.” It appears that what the British people have done in Brexit is a return to the Westphalia sovereign state model. Ironically, it was Britain, in league with the United States and other major powers of Europe, that championed regional integration as a hedge against such global catastrophes as World War 2. Thus was born, in 1957, the European Economic Community (the EEC), which was the pre-cursor to the EU. Other regional groupings of various shapes and sizes have since sprung up.
Africa was not left out in the race for regional integration. Several regional groupings sprang up in the ‘60s and ‘80s across Africa with many of them metamorphosing into the regional bodies as we know them today. In West Africa, there are the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Monetary Union. In Central Africa, there is the Economic and Monetary Union of Central Africa (CEMAC) and in Southern and Eastern Africa, there are the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the East African Community II (EAC).
Regional integration has been identified as a key vehicle for helping Africa to raise its competitiveness, diversify its economic base and create enough jobs for its young, fast-urbanizing population. This much was contained in a report, the Africa Competitiveness Report 2013 released in Cape Town, South Africa on May 9, 2013. The ECOWAS was established in 1975 with the signing of the Lagos Treaty. The treaty was revised in 1993 with a vision for the establishment of a common market patterned upon the EU. The actualisation of the common market vision was set in motion at Abuja, Nigeria in 2000 where the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS (the highest decision-making body) resolved to adopt Common External Tariffs (CET) that will allow free movement of goods across the region. The ECOWAS CET became a reality on January 1, 2015. It should be noted that the ECOWAS is yet to become an economic union like the EU. It is still at the level of a customs union, which is the second of a four-level process to becoming an economic union. The ECOWAS is a Customs union by virtue of the adoption of the CET. It still has to scale the common market level in order to get to the level of economic union. What this means is that whereas in a customs union like ECOWAS there is free movement of goods, in an economic union there are no barriers to internal trade, free movement of labour, harmonised tax rates and common monetary and fiscal policy. The EU is an example of the latter, although in a partial form.
How then will the outcome of the Brexit referendum affect ECOWAS, if at all? The major impact I see and which is the main point of this article is the impact Brexit would likely have on the ECOWAS journey towards becoming an economic union. Brexit may become a tool to be wielded by those in the region opposed to the fast pace of integration to slow down the process.
nOnuoha was, until recently, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at Guinness Nigeria Plc