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That the European Union's common commercial relations with ex-colonies and more broadly the 'tiers monde' now rest variously on benevolence, depoliticised practices, equal partnerships and values fuels reigning foundational myths about the EU in global politics. Efforts to disrupt these received presuppositions have come from interpretivist, postcolonial, post-development, post-structuralist and other heterodox research traditions. Yet the academy has been largely impervious to knowledges that genuinely question and subvert, in both theory and praxis, Eurocentric ways of seeing the world and understanding the EU as a 'benevolent' trade actor on the world stage. In dialogue with existing heterodox approaches, this article asks how we might puncture the coloniality of dominant knowledge regimes about EU trade relations vis-à-vis the global souths, i.e., peoples and places that the EU deems peripheral and, as such, in need of trade-related interventions in the name of development. To this end, we propose different 'subject-positions' with which to unthink and rethink our ways of knowing EU trade policy and the Eurocentrism lurking behind it by turning to decolonial thought. We borrow heavily from the work of Meera Sabaratnam whose 'decolonising strategies' in studying world politics we attempt to exemplify through a critical interrogation of the canonical scholarship around three distinct 'policy worlds' of EU external trade relations: Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) and Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapters in free trade agreements. Finally, we think reflexively about the decolonial option and the ruptures it triggers as to what EU trade policy is and the colonial logics sustaining 'normative' and 'geopolitical' narratives on/by the EU as a trade power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union's Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group are touted as a new form of equitable engagement. However, many argue that the EPAs simply substitute a different form of political and economic domination. In this paper, we consider if the siting of meetings has a substantive impact on EPA outcomes or media reporting thereof. Using a difference‐in‐difference like approach we evaluate if the tone and polarity of media reports about the EPAs during periods of 'home' meetings in the ACP countries differs from media reports during 'away' meetings in the EU. Using two different datasets we arrive at differing results, leading to inconclusive overall findings. While we suspect that the alternating meeting site norm has implications for EPA process and outcomes, further research will be needed to uncover the precise nature of these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the European Union's good governance initiatives under its sustainable development agenda affect ratification of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries. The theoretical framework argues that the likelihood of ratification is influenced by adjustment costs a signatory faces in implementing EPA provisions. We focus on the level of corruption as indicative of adjustment costs. In partner countries where corruption is high, EPAs that stipulate the lowering of tariffs and improved sustainability standards would clash with the interests of ACP elites and result in hefty adjustment costs. Empirical analysis of 78 ACP countries supports this argument. Results show that the likelihood of EPA ratification is lower in ACP countries with high levels of corruption. They support prevailing theories of self-selection into international agreements, where a given signatory is more likely to ratify agreements close to its institutional status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study provides early ex‐post empirical evidence on the effects of provisionally applied Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) on trade flows between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP). Employing the gravity model of trade, we do not find a general EPA effect on trade between ACP countries and the EU, but identify heterogeneous effects across specific agreements and economic sectors. While the CARIFORUM‐EU EPA rather reduced imports from the EU overall, other EPAs seem to have partly increased EU imports, particularly for the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) EPA partner countries. On the sectoral level, by comparison, we find increases in the EU's agricultural exports to SADC, Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) and the Pacific. In the area of manufactures trade, we find decreases of exports of the ESA and SADC countries to the EU, but increases in EU imports for SADC countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU is vigorously pursuing Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in its trade and aid relations with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Justifying the EPAs as being 'development friendly', EU officials promise that aid support to private sector development (PSD) in ACP countries will make free trade systems 'win–win'. This article, based on the authors' semi-structured interviews conducted in Ghana and Nigeria, examines the perspectives of cocoa stakeholders vis-à-vis EPAs and PSD. Applying critical discourse analysis to interview transcripts, it underscores areas of overlap and, crucially, divergence among cocoa stakeholders' own narratives on PSD support in the context of EPAs and the official legitimating discourse of EU institutions. In the process, the article draws critical attention to cocoa business interviewees' concerns regarding the impact of premature trade liberalisation. It also underscores cocoa stakeholders' concerns that EU PSD promises are not being fulfilled in terms of actual tangible benefits for business people in this vital ACP export sector. Accordingly, the article contributes to, and corroborates, an existing critical scholarly literature which problematises the strategic functions of donor PSD discourse in presenting free trade reforms as being 'pro-poor' in the post-Washington Consensus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic partnership agreements (EPAs) mark a new era in economic relations between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries that will lead to reciprocal tariff liberalization. Model‐based impact assessments have become a powerful tool in trade negotiations and mixed results are reported for ACP countries. Given their set‐up within a neoclassical framework, these models neglect important issues such as impacts on employment, macroeconomic balances and adjustment costs. The structuralist computable general equilibrium model applied in this article for three African EPA regions addresses these shortcomings and shows negative macroeconomic and distributional effects and important adjustment costs associated with employment and public revenue losses. These results highlight the importance of policy responses to deliver on promises associated with EPAs, namely sustainable economic development. More generally, they show the importance of alternative models to understand implementation challenges and facilitate broader debates about bilateral trade agreements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The EU's proposal to renew the EU-ACP Agreement in spite of a number of signals pointing in the opposite direction is, inter alia, the unintended consequence of independent decisions taken in three different policy areas (trade, environment, and foreign and security affairs). The common unintended consequence that the three decisions shared would not have materialised if the European Commission had not purposefully triggered it to justify its vision of future EU-ACP relations. These findings challenge the prevailing and superficial usage of the notion of the unintended as a synonym for unanticipated and undesirable, and demonstrate that unintended consequences do not necessarily presuppose lack of anticipation, but may well be the result of calculation by policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article offers a critical engagement with recent economic constructivist scholarship as a means of understanding the nature of the European Union’s ‘market power’. It does so by focusing on the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries, and seeks to explain why — in spite of the European Union’s preponderant market power — the goal of promoting trade liberalisation and regulatory harmonisation through regional Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) ultimately fell short of original ambitions. We highlight the inadequacies of materialist accounts of the European Union’s market power in this case and instead take our cue from the (predominantly) constructivist literature emphasising the role of transnational advocacy coalitions. We argue, however, that the latter do not go far enough in their exploration of the non-material correlates of the European Union’s market power by considering fully its discursive dimension. To address this shortcoming, we draw on Craig Parsons’ distinction between ideational and institutional logics of explanation to understand how the invocation of institutional constraints affects the impact of particular discursive strategies. We argue that, in our specific case, the success or failure of the Economic Partnership Agreements rested not just on the fungibility (or otherwise) of the European Union’s material power or the campaigning of transnational coalitions, but on the congruence between the ideas used by European Union policy actors to justify the Economic Partnership Agreements and the institutional norms associated with the setting in which these ideas were deployed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study estimates the impact on Burkina Faso of eliminating tariffs on imports from the EU under EPAs, considering trade, revenue and welfare effects. At complete elimination of tariffs on all products imports from trade classification sections (TDC 01-13) from the EU. Burkina Faso is likely to experience both welfare gains and losses depending on the values of imports of each trade classification section in question. The overall welfare effect relative to GDP tends to be very small and positive, but potential tariff revenue losses are enormous even when the country has up to fifteen - twenty-five years in which to implement the tariff reductions, unless with scope for tax substitution. EPAs effects are concentrated on those product sections where trade creation outweighs trade diversion such as Animal products, Vegetable products, Animal/Veg. products, Mineral products, and Textiles products. Besides, product sections with the greatest market opportunities for EU suppliers to displace any of the other suppliers, ECOWAS and/or ROW include sections where trade diversion outweighs trade creation effects, such as prepared foodstuffs, product of chemicals, plastics, raw hides & skin, etc. The sensitive products (SPs) to be excluded from tariff removal should include sections in which ECOWAS member nations are suppliers to regional importers so that excluding them as SPs would improve the welfare gain compared to estimates where tariff are removed from those products in which ECOWAS have zero potential. The results at this level of aggregation will provide useful information to the on-going negotiations between ECOWAS and the EU in determining Burkinabe's products to be exempted from tariff removal during EPAs based on the severity of the effects on varied trade classification (TDC) sections, among other considerations.

Brexit will of course have major implications for trade between Commonwealth African nations and the European continent. In the short term, the European Commission’s Economic Partnership Agreements with regional groups such as the East African Community will be complicated by the UK’s decision to leave the European project. Moreover, there are longer-term consequences to be considered, not least the role which the UK—as an independent trade actor—will adopt in its trade relations with Commonwealth African countries. This article examines the impact of Brexit for Commonwealth African nations’ trade with Europe (including the UK). It particularly points to several potential pitfalls arising from the Brexit referendum vis-à-vis African development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyses two key questions: the European Union (EU) as a model of regional integration for developing countries (including sub-Saharan Africa) and the EU as a trade partner. It argues that these two dimensions have been questioned since the mid-2000s and that this questioning stems from common interrogations on the credibility and the efficiency of the EU’s policy choices. The first step of the argument is that while the EU has represented a paradigmatic model of ‘developmental’ regional integration arrangements, the EU’s adherence to specific theoretical assumptions has eroded the credibility of its model (competition, fiscal discipline) as an optimal tool of growth and welfare. The second step of the argument is that these assumptions have influenced the theoretical framework and trade policies devised for developing countries, notably the Economic Partnership Agreements, which appear to be inefficient as tools for these countries’ growth. This theoretical framework has not only weakened the credibility of the EU as a model of a developmental regional integration, but also weakened the economic efficiency of its trade policies and, in turn, the credibility for sub-Saharan African countries of the assertion by the EU that its trade policies could be a tool of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the regional dynamics of African agency in the case of negotiations on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the EU and a group of Southern African countries, known as SADC-Minus. I argue that these negotiations were shaped by a pattern of differentiated responses to the choice set on offer under the EPAs by SADC-Minus policy makers and by a series of strategic interactions and power plays between them. I offer two contributions to an emerging literature on the role of African agency in international politics. First, I argue for a clear separation between ontological claims about the structure–agency relationship and empirical questions about the preferences, strategies and influence of African actors. Second, I suggest that, in order to understand the regional dynamics of African agency, it is important to pay close attention to the diversity and contingency of African preferences and to the role of both power politics and rhetorical contestation in regional political processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Africa has been divided into four groups of states by the European Union in the negotiation of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) that will define the relationship between Africa and Europe in the future. The EPAs are unfair. They demand reciprocity between the EU countries collectively and each African country individually and they set conditions that will be demanded by any other country or groups of countries with which African countries seek trade arrangements. Further, separate EPAs among different groupings of African countries will undermine Africa’s wider integration efforts, leaving it in thrall to EU companies. In their present form the EPAs are not in Africa’s interest and will unnecessarily undermine the potential for Europe’s improved relationship with the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study employs a global computable general equilibrium ( CGE) model to examine the potential impacts of the Economic Partnership Agreements ( EPAs) between the European Union ( EU) and the Southern African Development Community ( SADC). The simulation results suggest that a comprehensive EPA scenario is welfare-improving for many SADC members. SADC preferential access to the EU markets is the key source for the prospective welfare and terms of trade gains. Overall, SADC production structures become more concentrated in export-oriented sectors. These structural changes are accompanied by a high degree of adjustment and substantial fiscal losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main goal of the article is to analyse the basic problems regarding the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. The negotiations so far have been controversial, and discussions about them have been inconclusive. In the first section of the article, the negotiations are set within the context of global politics and are especially examined in the context of new regionalism/inter-regionalism and international trade relations to clarify the motives behind the EPAs. Then the negotiation parties are introduced and a brief overview of the ACP economies follows, since they all have a considerable impact on the EPA discussions. Next, an analysis of possible positive and negative impacts of the EPAs on the development of ACP countries follows.

This article charts an aspect of contemporary necro-ontology and necro-economics as a theory and practice. It begins with a discussion of governmentality and subsequently engages Blaney and Inyatullah's recent intervention in International Political Economy. I am particularly interested in their discussion of Hegel. By drawing on the idea of “direct theory” I bring into conversation social movement theorizing with academic theory to trace the chains of savagery that weave the fabric of Hegel's necro-ontology and its continuities in the European Union's Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), and much trade policy more generally. The second section offers an exploration of the European Commission's Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) from the vantage point of governmentality. I contend that governmentality is at work in two interrelated senses. On the one hand, there is an attempt to constitute individualist rationalist maximizers. On the other, there is an attempt to constitute African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states as neoliberal market subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theories and analyses of regionalism, from both ‘orthodox' and ‘critical' strands of international political economy (IPE), have tended to conceptualise regional integration as a process led byintra-regionalactors typically in reaction to external forces such as globalisation and the hegemonic power of international actors. This article sheds new light on theories of regionalism by arguing that international actors can have a direct and significant influence on the dynamics of regionalism, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, by examining the influence of the European Union (EU) on the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Building on the recent literature on Africa and international relations, which shows how lines of sovereignty between domestic and international actors are blurred in the case of African political economies, the article shows how the EU played a significant role in the SADC's inception and has been directly influential in shaping the SADC's strategies and priorities in the post-Lomé period. In the latter instance, this article explains how the EU's institutional embeddedness in the SADC's aid structures and its asymmetrical bargaining power in the SADC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) has encouraged the SADC's pursuit of a neoliberal, trade-oriented form of regionalism. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Global economic, demographic and geopolitical as well as internal developments since the signature of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement in 2000 have had a profound impact on relations between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group. The paper analyses the process of adaptation in the areas of development cooperation and in the political and security context, reflected in two revisions in 2005 and 2010. It discusses the influence of the Lisbon Treaty on the objective of poverty reduction, and the role of EU values and security concerns. The negotiation of new trading arrangements compatible with the World Trade Organisation triggered a veritable storm in ACP-EU relations. The paper discusses factors, which proved to be major hurdles to the successful and timely conclusion of the Economic Partnership Agreements, as real trade between the two groups saw a reversal of the downward trend and the ACP recovered part of the previously lost market share of ACP goods in total EU imports. The exclusivity of the flagship partnership has started to crumble as the importance of new partners increased both on ACP and EU side. The author maintains that with the Cotonou Partnership Agreement's purpose defined as solely supporting the development of the ACP countries, it is not surprising that it does not count among the strategic partnerships from the EU perspective. Yet, it is too early to predict the future of the ACP-EU relationship beyond 2020, but both the EU and the ACP have an interest in starting off their discussions and negotiations on their future relationship on the right footing. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Lisbon Treaty signalled that the European Parliament had become a central actor in the EU-Japan economic and trade partnership. In 2007, the ‘Global Europe’ strategy formalized the EU's process of expanding trade relationships via free trade agreements (FTAs). The EU-Korea FTA was the first of these to enter into force in 2011. Should Japan and the EU move forward with their own bilateral economic agreement despite a number of pending economic and trade issues ranging from mutual recognition or harmonization in clinical trials to the expansion of foreign direct investment to regulatory transparency? There are two main stumbling blocks to an agreement: linkage of issues and non-tariff measures (NTMs), i.e. local rules and standards that hinder trade. Three case studies in aerospace, telecommunications and food safety show that linkage has not been successful and highlights specific NTMs. The findings indicate that progress toward an EU-Japan FTA (or economic integration agreement or economic partnership agreement) hinges on the sector's regulatory past, the degree of transparency including the presence of NTMs and external factors including global trends and momentum towards agreements in other parts of the world. It remains to be seen if a formal bilateral trade arrangement is likely to result from the adoption of new approaches to negotiations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

On 15 October 2008, CARIFORUM became the first region among the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries to sign a ‘full’ Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU). Although the EPA process has generated widespread critical commentary, few analysts have stopped to consider the motives of individual ACP countries and regions in their approach to the talks. In this article we consider the question of motives in relation to the CARIFORUM-EU EPA. Specifically, it asks why did CARIFORUM feel it necessary or desirable to sign a ‘full’ EPA, containing numerous provisions not actually mandated by the WTO, when the rest of the ACP was content to sign far less ambitious ‘goods only’ interim agreements? In order to address this question, the article goes beyond the extant EU-ACP trade literature to build on wider international political economy (IPE) scholarship, which has analysed the actions of developing countries in relation to a whole range of ‘WTO-plus’ North–South regional and bilateral FTAs. On this basis, the article stands back from the complex details of the agreement to analyse its wider significance, especially in terms of the presumed trade-off between the immediate economic benefits of improved and more secure market access, against the longer term costs of sacrificing the regulatory autonomy, or policy space, deemed necessary to pursue the type of trade and industrial policies deployed successfully in the past by both developed and (some) developing countries. Put simply, the article seeks to ascertain why ultimately CARIFORUM signed an agreement, what it gained from the negotiations and at what cost. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: The paper provides a quantitative assessment of the impact on the banana market of the expansion of trade preferences the European Union granted Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and of the possible erosion of these preferences as a result of different possible conclusions, if any, of on-going WTO negotiations. The results of the simulations performed suggest that the impact of the EPA on production and consumption of bananas in the EU will be limited, while benefits for ACP countries will be significant (at the expense of Most Favoured Nation (MFN) exporters). An agreement between the EU and MFN countries to end the outstanding WTO disputes on bananas and/or the conclusion of the WTO Doha round may bring an erosion of the preferential margins currently enjoyed by ACP countries of such an order of magnitude as to cancel out most of these benefits. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article provides a general overview of the evolution of the European Union trade preferences with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries, giving due attention to the reform of the Sugar Protocol (SP) in light of the anticipated Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The EU sugar trade relationship with the ACP, as captured in both a reformed SP for ACP non-least developed countries and in the Everything-but-Arms initiative for the world's least developed countries, is analysed and contextualized within the ongoing negotiations toward achieving EPAs, which will substitute the Lomé Convention and give a new order to EU-ACP relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a general overview of the evolution of the European Union trade preferences with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries, giving due attention to the reform of the Sugar Protocol (SP) in light of the anticipated Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). The EU sugar trade relationship with the ACP, as captured in both a reformed SP for ACP non-least developed countries and in the Everything-but-Arms initiative for the world's least developed countries, is analysed and contextualized within the ongoing negotiations toward achieving EPAs, which will substitute the Lomé Convention and give a new order to EU-ACP relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper deals with the development of scientific policy advice by providing a methodology to foster a social learning process. The methodology, called participatory Sustainability Impact Assessment (pSIA), aims to structure complex problem situations, to clarify interests and basic assumptions, to interpret scientific studies, to develop impact assessment, and to explore sensitivity of uncertainty and lack of information. In pSIA workshops the participants are supposed to build conceptual models with different modelling methods, like System Dynamics, Value Chain Analysis, and Morphological Analysis. A case study is presented that describes a workshop series with political as well as academic actors, applying the pSIA approach to an impact assessment of Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and the Eastern and Southern Africa Region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The signing of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the African Caribbean Pacific (ACP) nations dominated the multilateral trade agenda in late 2007 and early 2008. While the Caribbean nations signed the full EPAs, some of the African countries only singed interim agreements with the EU and a number of West African countries chose not to sign any EPA. Using the case of Botswana's export markets, especially in agriculture, it is argued that the interim Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA, which was signed by Botswana and her neighbours, with the exception of South Africa, may have been economically sensible in protecting Botswana's rural poor, at least in the short run. By tracing trade flows from the border to specifically poor sectors of the country, the importance of the beef exports sector to the poor and rural communities was found. The potential effects on the most significant exports of tariff bands associated with preferential agreements with the EU were found to be most beneficial in comparison to the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) and the South Africa-EU Trade Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) tariff bands. But it is also argued that the EPA will most likely have far reaching long run costs on regional economic development and institutional integration, within the SADC and Southern African Customs Union (SACU). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries entered a new era in 2008. The Cotonou trade regime and the WTO waiver legitimising it have expired, and the long anticipated, and much debated, move to Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) has begun. This article explains the background and analyses the ‘alternatives’ to EPAs, in order to tackle common misperceptions. Moving on from what has been the focus of debates, namely, the reciprocal liberalisation required under WTO rules, it sheds some light on the non-goods trade aspects of EPAs which, while integral to economic policy, are inherently hard to quantify and often skimmed over in existing studies or addressed in ideological terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring coherence in the European Union's relations with other actors is no easy task and particularly difficult when several distinct policy areas are handled within one and the same international negotiation. Such was the case in the recently concluded negotiations on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with regional groupings of Asian, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The aim of this article is to analyse the challenges facing the EU when struggling to ensure coherence in its relations with developing countries and to shed light on the institutional characteristics that either prevent or promote coherence. It is argued that the highly compartmentalized character of EU policy fields and the disjointed decision-making machinery constitute historically grounded institutional obstacles to coherence. At the same time, however, both external institutional linkages — primarily to the WTO — and the internal institutional definition of EPA negotiations as trade negotiations have a logic of their own, which favour a coherent approach. The result is a process of “imposed coherence”: while the EU formally acts as one united body in the negotiations, the disjointed character of EU policy making means that the negotiation stance of the Union is fundamentally ambiguous and characterized by significant tensions and conflicts between policy objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union has always used trade policy measures for development objectives. But the design and content of the EU's 'trade and development' relations have changed considerably during the past five decades. This paper focuses on the most recent changes in the Union's common commercial policy vis-à-vis the South, looking at three levels: The EU role in the multilateral negotiations of the WTO Doha Development Agenda, Europe's bilateral trade agreements with third countries and regions and its unilateral market access schemes through the Generalised System of Preferences. Although historical factors continue to determine the EU's position in these areas, a relatively new European trade and development agenda can be discerned. More specifically, it is argued that two trends have underlined recent changes in this area. First, there is a drive towards reciprocal trade relations, in line with the WTO regime. Even Europe's unilateral and bilateral trade relations are increasingly streamlined with the multilateral trade rules. Second, there is a growing emphasis on regulatory issues, capacity building and aid for trade. This new and broad trade agenda illustrates the European position that promoting free trade is not sufficient for economic development of the South. However, the paper concludes that the EU's new commercial policies are not consistently development oriented, and that more coherence between trade and aid policies would be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relations between the European Union and Africa pre‐date the origins of the EU itself. With the Lomé Convention of 1975, relations between the two regions were set on a more solid footing with a highly institutionalised framework of cooperation, hailed at the time as a partnership of equals. The successor to the Lomé Convention, the Cotonou Agreement, is now also portrayed as an innovative form of interregional cooperation, a form of hybrid interregionalism between the formal regional grouping of the European Union and a ‘constructed’ region, comprising the African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. This article suggests that the EU approach to interregionalism is itself evolving, and the cooperation with the ACP group does not reflect any sustained commitment on the part of the European Union to patterns of cooperation and partnerships built up in the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]