The European Union has been negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements with the ACP countries since 27 September 2002. EPAs are meant to be “instruments for development” furthering poverty reduction, sustainable development, regional integration and integration into the world economy. Nevertheless, the negotiations have been fraught with disagreements and difficulties and, except in the case of the Caribbean, they did not come to a conclusion at the foreseen end date of 31 December 2007. Instead, a series of interim agreements on the liberalisation of trade in goods were initialled with individual or small groups of ACP countries, creating rifts in the ACP regions.
Almost 2 years past the 2007 deadline, the EPA negotiations are still far from over. The “interim” arrangements imposed at the time by the EU did not solve the key issues of contention but, on the contrary, further complicated the negotiations. The previous European Parliament has called for – and the EU Council and Commission have promised – more flexibility in their approach. However, the flexibility shown in some cases has been inadequate and in other spheres has yet to materialise.
More information on the critical issues in the current negotiations can be found in the common CSO discussion paper Critical Issues in the EPA negotiations (August 2009).
A recent overview of the state of the play by the EU Commission can be found here (30 September 2009).
