ISDS Case Map
EPAs
Economic Partnership Agreements between the EU and ACP countries (under the Cotonou Agreement)
The value of the preferences African countries will reap from an EPA will essentially become nil in about 5 to 10 years.
EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton visited several nations in Southern Africa last week, where she held talks with key governmental leaders. Although the general purpose of the trip was to promote bilateral and regional trade relations, Ashton also hoped to make progress on a potential Economic Partnership Agreement, or EPA, between members of the South African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union.
Switzerland-based intergovernmental organisation, South Centre, has warned Nigeria and other African nations that the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) being proposed by the European Union (EU) will eliminate the capacity of African nations to industrialise within five to 10 years of signing the agreement.
The EU Trade Commissioner, Catherine Ashton, was scheduled to arrive in Botswana on Wednesday for talks with senior SADC officials.
Namibia is taking another bite at discussions on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union in the hope of reaching a favourable standing.
For failing to assent to the interim Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) being proposed by the EU to the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, processed agricultural produce being exported from Nigeria to the EU attracts an extra cost of a minimum of 6 per cent of the total value of products being exported. Similar products being exported from countries such as Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire and others who have endorsed the temporary EPA do not attract this extra cost, therefore putting Nigerian products at a major cost disadvantage in the export of processed products to the EU.
Brussels officials have rejected calls from three southern African governments for a reassessment of a new trade accord with the European Union.
Why EPAs threaten the world's forests and forest peoples
In an article titled “Financial Regime Change” published in New Left Review, September-October 2008, Robert Wade has made a number of points which have salience in the context of the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement
Just as the European Union was sold to Europeans as a trade agreement even though it was actually a political union, so it has been sold again, this time to the islands of the Caribbean.
