Summary
DOWNLOAD PDFThe European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries are entering the final phase of negotiation over Economic Partnership Agreements, a set of WTO-compliant preferential trade agreements that will substitute the current non-reciprocal preference scheme. Such agreements would liberalize bilateral trade between the EU and six ACP regional groupings. Such a proposed opening of ACP markets might well provoke trade diversion, will cause serious government revenue losses, and might hamper regional integration. This paper puts forward an alternative path to liberalization, which would minimize these costs while still addressing the WTO constraint and their developmental goals.