Get involved > Campaign > Stop EPAs > Weren't EPAs supposed to be regional agreements?
Weren't EPAs supposed to be regional agreements?
Yes! At the start of negotiations, the ACP countries were divided into six regions to negotiate the deals, which were supposed to promote stronger regional markets.
Regional markets play an important role in supporting economic diversification, especially when domestic markets are small and fragmented. Regional integration gives companies larger markets, making it easier for them to specialise and add value.
However, the pressure of the December 2007 deadline led to the fragmentation of the EPA negotiating blocs, undermining regional integration objectives.
For example, in October 2007 West African ministers asked for a 2 year extension of the negotiating deadline in order to complete a regional dealbut Europe by-passed the regional negotiators and instigated bilateral deals with Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.The remaining, mostly Least Developed Countries in the region, had less incentive to initial deals and so did not do so.This has splintered the West African region.
In the case of East Africa, the opposite was true – Kenya needed a deal to safeguard its exports; and while Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi had concerns about the EPA, they nevertheless initialled along with Kenya in order to preserve the unity of the region.
In both cases, countries were stuck between a rock and a hard place – having to chose between preserving their regions alongside accepting a trade deal with the EU that threatens their development, or resisting the EPA but losing trading opportunities with neighbouring countries (also therefore threatening their development prospects).
