The conflicting aspects of economic development within economic partnership agreements: will they promote development? a case study of the East African community economic partnership agreement

Abstract

After negotiations since September 2002, 1 35 African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, out of 79 initiated new trading arrangements with the European Community (EC) in November and December 2007. For these ACP countries, the new trading arrangements replaced the 25-year Lome Convention regime, first put in place in 1975 and extended up to December 2007 by the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) concluded on 23 June 2000. The non-reciprocal preferential market access treatment (that is charging less, no import taxes on similar products imported from elsewhere) under the CPAwas scheduled to expire on 31 December 2007, the same time the waiver extended to the EC by World Trade Organisation (WTO) members was to expire.4 The EC had been asked by the WTO to bring her trading relationship with the ACP countries into conformity with WTO rules of non-discrimination among countries' trading partners unless the discrimination is under the auspices of a customs union or an FTA. The emphasis given to the WTO compatibility of future trading arrangements between the EC and the ACP states derives from various factors. First, as WTO members the concerned majority of ACP states and the EC are under an obligation to ensure the conformity of their trade policies with WTO obligations.