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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]

Given the importance of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA), it is critical to examine its potential success, or failure, particularly in the context of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Another important issue is how the AfCFTA would interface with other Free Trade Agreements (FTAs), the customs unions and monetary communities that already exist in Africa. The free trade agreements that subregions and or countries in Africa enter into are a threat to the AfCFTA because all efforts of African countries should be focusing on boosting intra-African trade in order to ensure that the AfCFTA succeeds and it does not seem feasible to readily 'absorb' the RECs into the AfCFTA. Using results from fieldwork, the paper makes a case that the future of RECs should be resolved so there is sufficient clarity regarding the implementation of the AfCFTA as far as the role of RECs is concerned. [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]

In 2014, the EU concluded Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with several African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) regions. These EPAs represent some of the most advanced examples of interregional cooperation. Yet, the outcomes of EPA negotiations are not the same across all regions. This article investigates differences in negotiated outcomes and argues that regional actorness – the ability of regions to become identifiable, to aggregate the interests of member states, to formulate collective goals and to make and implement decisions – influences regions’ ability to navigate interregional trade negotiations. In a comparison of the actorness and negotiated outcomes of West Africa and the SADC EPA Group, the article shows that actorness matters for international negotiations: regions with higher levels of actorness can negotiate better outcomes even under conditions of stark power asymmetry. [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.

This paper deals with the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. It addresses the question why the EU firmly insisted on upholding the negotiating deadline for these new trade agreements, despite the very damaging consequences; these hastily initialed trade deals entailed. Regional integration in the South was hampered; the development of the friendly image of the EU got a serious blow; the EU did not manage to include the WTO plus issues, and the prospect of full EPAs at later stage is not guaranteed. We first qualify the Union’s argument to the expiry of a waiver by the World Trade Organization (WTO), which legitimized the former trade regime, and placed an external and insurmountable pressure on the negotiations. There is no rational explanation for Europe’s harsh attitude on the EPA deadline, since neither legal, nor economic interests would have been harmed, if the deadline had been postponed. The main argument advanced in this article addresses whether the EU had to push through these trade deals, because it had entrapped itself through its own ‘rhetorical action’. In its negotiation discourse, the European Commission (EC) had so often emphasized the deadline together with the fact that there were no alternatives to EPAs, that it could not change its mind overnight, when at the end of the 2007 negotiations they were still going nowhere. The Union was forced to keep up with the deadline it had imposed upon itself with the risk of losing all its credibility.

The tendencies of making and implementing FTAs in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) are analyzed. Problems of carrying out FTA-oriented trade policy by APR countries are determined. Issues of Japanese foreign trade policy concerning conclusion and implementation of FTAs with APR countries in 2000–2006 are considered. Assessment is given of the current condition and prospects of Japanese foreign trade policy with APR countries as part of concluded and planned FTAs

The tendencies of making and implementing FTAs in the Asia-Pacific region (APR) are analyzed. Problems of carrying out FTA-oriented trade policy by APR countries are determined. Issues of Japanese foreign trade policy concerning conclusion and implementation of FTAs with APR countries in 2000–2006 are considered. Assessment is given of the current condition and prospects of Japanese foreign trade policy with APR countries as part of concluded and planned FTAs

Development cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states has provided a vehicle for the UK’s ongoing relationship with the majority of the Commonwealth, although this was widely overlooked in the run-up to the UK referendum and its aftermath. Membership of the EU has provided the UK with the opportunity to collectivise its obligations to ACP Commonwealth states and a framework for its development cooperation relations across the Global South. This has augmented British leadership in global development and the alignment of development policy and practice at the global, regional and national levels. This paper argues that withdrawal from the EU would be a lengthy and costly process that threatens to undermine the UK’s position in global development, current levels and sources of development funding and existing and nascent trade relations. While this will present particular challenges for ACP Commonwealth states, there may also be opportunities to propose and advocate for alternative frameworks. However, recent changes to the UK’s post-referendum political leadership does not augur well for those hoping for a roll back of pressures for liberalisation and associated reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critically interrogates claims that a British exit from the European Union (EU) (Brexit) will create opportunities for the UK to escape the EU’s apparent protectionism and cumbersome internal politics in order to pursue a more liberal and globalist trade agenda based on the Commonwealth. Taking a historical view of UK and EU trade relations with the Commonwealth in Africa, the author highlights the way in which the incorporation of the majority of Commonwealth states into the EU’s preferential trading relationships has reconfigured ties between the UK and its former colonies over time. Further, the author suggests that the EU’s recent attempts to realise a vision for an ambitious set of free trade agreements in Africa—the Economic Partnership Agreements—was disrupted not by EU protectionism or internal politics but rather by African resistance to the EU’s liberal agenda for reciprocal tariff liberalisation and regulatory harmonisation. The UK therefore faces a complex challenge if it is to disentangle its trade relations with Africa from those of the EU and to forge its own set of ambitious free trade agreements with African Commonwealth partners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

As in many parts of the world, an anti-investor-State dispute settlement (ISDS) discourse has been propagated also in Japan. In the Japanese Diet (Japan's parliament), ISDS is criticized as infringing State sovereignty; as being incompatible with the Japanese Constitution; as unduly restricting regulatory space and government procurement; as being biased in favor of the United States; and as being acceptable only in relation to developing States. These criticisms are difficult to sustain and in fact ineffective as investment treaties continue to be approved by the Diet by unanimity or by a large majority. An analysis of the rhetoric of these criticisms and of actual voting records suggest that investor-State arbitration itself is not an independent political issue in Japan, but used as a pretext to manifest an anti-American sentiment or to criticize the incumbent government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]