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Abstract
In this article, we map and explain the unevenness of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) responses to the EU’s external promotion of regional integration in the context of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). Although the controversies associated with the EPAs are typically attributed to a common set of problems, what remains to be fully explained is why these manifested themselves to a greater or lesser extent in different national and regional contexts. We account for this variance as a product of the degree of congruence between the institutional trajectory of individual regional projects and the model of economic integration prescribed by the EU in its post-Lomé prospectus for the ACP. We describe this congruence as either ‘high’, ‘medium’ or ‘low’ and use this explanatory model to account for variances in ACP responses to the EPAs, which would otherwise provide an untidy fit with accounts preoccupied with the economic determinants of bargaining outcomes.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the participants in the ‘EU Contributions to Equitable Growth and Sustainable Development in the post-2015 Consensus’ workshop, University of Leicester, 20 April 2016, at which a draft version of this paper was first presented. They would also like to thank Peter O’Reilly for copy-editing and formatting the manuscript.
Notes
1. Heron, “Asymmetric Bargaining and Development”; Heron and Murray-Evans, “Limits to Market Power”; Murray-Evans, “Regionalism and African Agency”; Nyaga Munyi, “Beyond Asymmetry”. Namibia and Ghana both concluded interim EPAs at the end of 2007 but later refused to sign these agreements. Both countries concluded watered-down EPAs along with their respective regions in 2014.
2. Heron and Murray-Evans, “The EU and Africa”.
3. The Singapore issues – government procurement, trade facilitation, investment and competition – were introduced onto the World Trade Organisation agenda at the Singapore Ministerial in 1996 and subsequently became part of the Doha Round negotiations. All except trade facilitation were dropped from the Doha agenda following disagreements between developed and developing countries that culminated in the collapse of the Cancun Ministerial in 2003. These issues were mentioned only briefly in the 2000 Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the ACP countries but the EU subsequently insisted that they should be an important part of any ‘comprehensive’ EPA.
4. See, inter alia, Brown, “Restructuring North–South Relations”; Faber and Orbie, Beyond Market Access; Gibb, “Post-Lome”; Heron, Pathways from Preferential Trade; Heron and Murray-Evans, “Limits to Market Power”; Heron and Siles-Brügge, “Competitive Liberalisation and the ‘Global Europe’”; Siles-Brügge, Constructing European Union Trade Policy; Ravenhill, “Back to the Nest.”
5. Heron and Murray-Evans, “Limits to Market Power.”
6. Siles-Brügge, Constructing European Union Trade Policy, 142.
7. Solignac Lecomte, Options for Future ACP-EU, 7.
8. European Commission, “Green Paper on Relations”, xii.
9. European Commission, “European Community Support”.
10. Heron, Pathways from Preferential Trade.
11. For a more detailed discussion of the central contradictions within the EU’s approach to the EPAs and their consequences, see note 5 above; see note 10 above.
12. Hurrell, “Regionalism in Theoretical Perspective”; Breslin and Higgott, “Studying Regions: Learning from the Old”.
13. Akokpari, “Dilemmas of Regional Integration”; Østergaard, “Classical Models of Regional Integration”; Qualmann, “Political, Legal and Economic Perspective”; Tekere, “Challenges for the SADC EPA Group”; Payne, The Politics of the Caribbean Community.
14. See note 2 above
15. See also, Heron, Pathways from Preferential Trade, 64–5.
16. European Commission, Orientations on the Qualification, 3.
17. Ibid., 9.
18. Ibid.
19. See also, Heron, Pathways from Preferential Trade, 68.
20. The other regional economic communities either contain a number of non-ACP countries (Community of Sahel-Saharan States [CEN-SAD] and Arab Maghreb Union [UMA]) or focus primarily on security and political dialogue (IGAD). While ECCAS was initially identified as the possible basis for an EPA, the eventual EPA group in Central Africa more closely reflected the smaller and more integrated Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa (CEMAC).
21. A confidential interview with a former DG Trade official revealed that the Commission argued the case for the Democratic Republic of Congo – a member of three separate RECs – to be part of the Central Africa EPA configuration to give this region more market potential. In 2007, the Commission also insisted that Tanzania leave the SADC-minus group and join the EAC group instead (a customs union of which it was a member).
22. The SADC REC members were initially divided between the SADC-minus, Central Africa, and Eastern and Southern Africa EPA groups. Tanzania later joined the EAC EPA, dividing the SADC REC into a fourth EPA group.
23. See note 16 above.
24. Bilal and Ramdoo, “EPA Negotiations.”
25. Signatures of the West Africa and EAC EPAs are still pending at the time of writing. This is in some doubt in both regions. In West Africa there has been opposition to the deal from Nigerian government and private sector actors since the terms were agreed in 2014. In the EAC, Tanzania indicated in advance of the scheduled signing of the region’s EPA on July 18 2016 that it no longer wished to be part of the agreement, citing the uncertainty created by the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the EU as a key reason for the decision.
26. Lesotho and Mozambique concluded subregional EPAs in 2007 before concluding a regional deal with the rest of the SADC EPA group in 2014. Zambia and Comoros initialled an EPA in 2007 but never signed or ratified this deal.
27. European Commission, Orientations on the Qualification.
28. These categorisations – low, moderate or high – are based on the authors’ judgement, with brief justifications offered in Table . They are intended to provide an indication of the comparative degree of institutional congruence between the individual ACP groups and the model of economic integration on which the EU’s approach to the EPAs was premised. The claim is not that the outcome of the negotiations could be read off solely on the basis of these categorisations, nor that each of the four variables carried the same weight in determining the negotiating outcome in each case. Rather, Table offers a simplified picture of the institutional dynamics of each region, while the way in which these shaped the outcome of the negotiations is discussed in further detail and with greater nuance in the sections below.
29. Heron, “Asymmetric Bargaining and Development”; Nyaga Munyi, “Beyond Asymmetry”.
30. South Centre, EPA Negotiations in the Caribbean Region, 5.
31. Ibid., 8.
32. Heron, “Asymmetric Bargaining and Development”; ECDPM, Implementing the Economic Partnership Agreement.
33. During the 30th Annual Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, held in Guyana 2–4 July 2009, the decision was taken to rename the CRNM as the Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) and to redefine its operational remit. Among other things, the OTN was re-incorporated into the CARICOM Secretariat. These changes are a direct result of the fallout from the EPA negotiations where the quasi-autonomous status of the CRNM was widely criticised in the region. The controversy surrounding the CRNM provides an interesting footnote to the issues explored in this article, not least the tension between the economic and political dimensions of the EPAs.
34. Bishop et al., “Caribbean Development Alternatives”, 94–5.
35. Nyaga Munyi, “Beyond Asymmetry”, 58–9.
36. Bishop et al., “Caribbean Development Alternatives”, 95–6.
37. See note 2 above.
38. Hulse, “Actorness Beyond the European Union”, 556–7.
39. Ibid., 558.
40. Lorenz, Transformation on Whose Terms?, 14.
41. Hulse, “Actorness Beyond the European Union,” 556.
42. See Murray-Evans, “Regionalism and African Agency.”
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. South Centre, EPA Negotiations in Central African Region, 2.
46. Babarinde and Faber, “EPAs and Integration in SSA.”
47. Lorenz, Transformation on Whose Terms.
48. For and extended discussion, see note 10 above.
49. Julian et al., “EPA Update”; Roquefeul, “EPA Update.”
50. South Centre, EPA Negotiations in the Pacific Region, 9.
51. Confidential interview, 9 September 2015.