The Samoa Agreement between the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States contains free trade goals that alarm African officials in Brussels, write Mark Langan and Sophia Price.
After much delay, the Samoa Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS ) was signed in November 2023. It contains robust language about the need for the parties to implement Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). These free trade deals between Europe and regional economic communities in Africa (and the Caribbean and Pacific) require OACPS signatories to dismantle their tariffs. In return, OACPS countries receive equivalent low tariff access to European consumers (which they already enjoyed).
In 2000, when the EPA process was launched, the European Commission claimed that World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules necessitated this shift to ‘reciprocal’ free trade. African governments in Nigeria and Tanzania, however, raised concerns about the implications of tariff liberalisation for their farmers and manufacturing industries. As a result, several key OACPS nations continue to refuse EPAs for fear of the consequences of import flooding of EU produce into their domestic markets.
Some lower middle-income states such as Ghana and Kenya have acquiesced to unilateral EPAs with the EU, despite the refusal of their respective regional economic communities to implement region-wide deals. Kenyan officials feared for the wellbeing of their cut-flower sector if they refused to sign an EPA since otherwise, the EU would place Kenyan exporters onto a stricter tariff schedule. Ghana, meanwhile, was worried about its tuna and banana exporters should it likewise default to higher EU tariffs.
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