Leiden University Student Repository

Brunner, Filippo 2020

The regional economic and political effects of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) in the ECOWAS and SADC countries

Master thesis | International Relations (MA)

open access

The EU-ACP relationship is very old and has developed much over time. After three trade disputes at the WTO level, the unilateral trade preferences that ACP countries enjoyed under the Cotonou...Show moreThe EU-ACP relationship is very old and has developed much over time. After three trade disputes at the WTO level, the unilateral trade preferences that ACP countries enjoyed under the Cotonou Agreement, ceased to exist in 2008. Therefore, regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and several groupings of the ACP countries were meant to enter into force to ensure continued economic cooperation between the EU and the ACP. Furthermore, the EU envisioned the EPA agreements to further strengthen the regionalisation processes within the African continent. However, the EPA negotiations have proven to be very difficult since only 4 out of 7 regional EPAs have come into force. This comparative case study takes a regionalist approach and focusses on the political and economic effects that the implementation of the SADC EPA and the two West African stepping stone EPAs with Ghana and the Ivory Coast have had on the ECOWAS and SADC countries. In particular, the author has analysed UNCTAD trade and investment statistics and has conducted interviewees with African regional experts and EU officials. The results show that the EPA agreements do support deeper regional economic and political integration among the African EPA member states. However, due to the different composition of the EPA groupings and the already existing African Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the implementation of the EPAs have hindered the integration process of both the ECOWAS and SADC projects.Show less