Suchergebnisse

The direct effects of EPAs on ACP countries arise from the requirement to eliminate tariffs on most imports from the EU. While consumers gain from cheaper imports, the government losses tariff revenue and producers face increased completion, implying adjustment costs. This paper estimates the consumer welfare and revenue impact for a sample of 34 ACP countries of eliminating tariffs on imports from the EU under an EPA, and discusses the associated adjustment costs. Although the ACP overall and on average experiences consumer welfare gains, the gains (or any losses) are small and associated with significant revenue losses and potential adjustment costs. As the gains are associated with increased imports from the EU, larger welfare gains tend to be associated with larger revenue losses and adjustment costs. There is scope for tax substitution to address revenue concerns, but addressing adjustment costs (especially employment) will be much more difficult. ACP countries can exclude up to 20% of imports from the EU from tariff elimination (sensitive products). The paper argues that regionally traded goods should be classified as sensitive and excluded from liberalization. Although this reduces consumer welfare gains (or increases welfare losses), these are likely to be more than offset by the benefits from lower revenue losses and trade effects that reduce adjustment costs. This also serves to encourage increased intra-regional trade: regional exporters gain from the preservation of their regional market share and in all countries domestic producers are likely to produce some regionally traded goods.

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries and the European Union could serve as an opportunity to accelerate global and regional trade integration of ACP countries. Moreover, the European Commission intends to use EPAs as a tool for development and the eradication of poverty in ACP countries. To achieve their potential development, however, there are a number of preconditions in ACP countries to be fulfilled. This paper argues that institutional quality plays a key role in a successful trade liberalisation. In fact, only countries with high-quality institutions, partly in the form of good government regulations, are likely to benefit from trade. nfortunately, the vast majority of African ACP countries have excessive regulations that hinder them from taking advantage of trade. For the necessary institutional reforms to resolve this problem, we will discuss a number of important issues that have to be addressed to enable ACP countries to take full advantage of EPAs.

The controversial Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are currently back on the agenda, as several African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states are again faced with a loss of market access if they do not ratify their EPAs by 1 October 2016. To complicate matters, Brexit has introduced an element of uncertainty and is causing some ACP states to reconsider their decision to sign EPAs. EPAs were introduced under the trade pillar of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), which governs relations between the European Union (EU) and the ACP. EPAs represent a sea change in trade relations between the EU and the ACP: not only do they introduce reciprocity into trade preferences, they are organized on a regional basis, with the aim of promoting regional integration within the ACP. This Briefing Paper presents an update of the various EPA processes, and investigates the extent to which they have actually met the EU's stated aim of promoting regionalism in the ACP, as well as the EPAs alignment with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the debate on the future of EU-ACP cooperation. EPAs have been only partially effective in facilitating regional integration in the ACP. EPA negotiations have resulted in the conclusion of region-wide deals that align with existing integration initiatives in only three regions: the Caribbean, the East African Community (EAC), and West Africa. EPAs have acted as a 'mid-wife' to deeper integration in these regions, however it is a possibility that the EAC and West African EPAs will not be signed by the October deadline. In the remaining regions – the Pacific, Central Africa, Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – EPAs have made future prospects for regional integration more difficult, and in some cases may have contributed to a 'lock-in' of fragmented regionalism. Part of the reason for this mixed record is tension between the CPA's principles of 'regionalization', which recognizes the importance of regional integration for development; and 'differentiation', which advocates treating states differently based on their level of development. EPAs aimed to encourage groups of states to sign the agreements as regional blocs, but the EU's Everything But Arms (EBA) regime undermines regional EPAs by offering Least Developed Countries (LDCs) non-reciprocal trade preferences. This splits ACP regions into LDCs versus non-LDCs, making it difficult to conclude regional EPAs. Given the ongoing struggle to conclude regional EPAs, and the uncertainty of Brexit, the EU should consider extending the 1 October deadline, to allow ACP states more time to consider their positions and work on further harmonising regional relations. As regional integration is key for the economic development of ACP states, future cooperation should be aware of the need for alignment of EPAs, the SDGs, and the goal of regional integration.

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) nation-states are the most recent construct in a long history of developing countries' dependency and reliance on developed European countries. Even though Preferential Trade Agreements(PTAs) are widely used by countries party to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the European Union is hiding behind illusions of non-economic trade benefits, such as increased stability and health benefits, in their EPAs with ACP countries. The European Union has the economic bargaining power, creating an upper hand in the trade negotiations with the former colonial countries and other developing countries. The EPAs, like other PTAs, consistently have provisions that should be found to violate the most-favored nation (MFN) clause. Even though GATT Article XXIV allows for PTAs, in order for the WTO to achieve one of its initiatives to liberalize world trade, the MFN clause should penetrate throughout the EU-ACP agreements.

The European Union is currently negotiating free trade agreements, called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), with African countries as part of the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. The paper empirically assesses the impact of the EPAs on trade flows and government revenue for 14 West African countries. The results indicate that the decline in import duties due to the preferential tariff elimination might be of some cause for concern and that complementary fiscal and economic policies have to be implemented before or at the time the EPAs come into force.

While the European Community has exclusive competence for trade policy, the competence over development policy is shared with member states of the European Union (EU).Given that trade is communitarised, it could be assumed that it is a strong instrument for the EU that can be well used for development. Trade is a particularly prominent feature of the EU's relations to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of developing countries, and Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) are the envisaged new trade pillar of ACP-EU-cooperation. This study analyses the development relevance of the EU's trade policy towards the ACP countries as formulated in the EPA, with a view to drawing conclusions on how to strengthen the trade development nexus. It specifically assesses the way in which the EU as a multilevel system has operated in the EPA negotiations. It is notably argued that the EU system needs to be more flexible to respond to issues of development concern in the trade negotiations, e.g. market access and support measures for ACP states. Efforts are furthermore required to improve the coordination of European policy-making on trade and development. Both the EU's communitarian and bilateral policies will need to engage in a more complementary fashion to support productive and trading capacities in the ACP and developing countries.

The Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), which governs relations between the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group and the European Union (EU), will expire in the year 2020. While the three pillars of this framework addressing political dialogue, development cooperation and trade are generally considered to have served their purpose well, there are clear signs that significant changes within the ACP group, the EU and the wider international landscape demand a different articulation of the relationship. A tacit understanding among Europeans is that the ball is in the ACP's corner in terms of defining and determining their own future as a group and its relationship vis-à-vis the EU as such. However, a momentum needs to be built for the coming 2015 revision of the Cotonou Agreement with a view to a plausible post-2020 scenario, in which the EU also needs to set out its own desires and priorities in giving shape to the cooperation. In previous years the EU Member States increasingly "outsourced" the management of the partnership to the European Commission, but there is a gradually growing recognition that the CPA is presently the principal functioning vehicle guiding EUAfrica relations. European perceptions on the future of the Cotonou Agreement point to two sets of arguments, namely: Reasons to do away with the ACP-EU partnership: Weak rationale to keep a common framework with these very different regions, combined with weak evidence of the development of an ACP identity or intra-ACP trade; Decreasing relevance of ex-colonial ties, particularly in the context of an enlarged EU, but also more generally of the agreement's strong focus on official development assistance; Poor track record in shaping joint positions and interventions at international fora. Elements in the partnership deemed worth preserving: Legally binding nature that favours political dialogue as well as predictability and strategy ownership in development cooperation; A relatively strong performance of the European Development Fund (EDF) compared to other EU development cooperation instruments, combined with its multi-stakeholder approach to the design and management of development strategies; Potential alliance for global public goods provision. Despite the fact that there is not yet an official position from the EU nor its Member States on what should happen after the CPA expires, European actors (European Commission, European Parliament, Member States) seem to be inclined to move towards a more regional approach of the Union's external relations while maintaining the valuable aspects of the present setup. While the EU's declining strategic interest in the Caribbean – and especially the Pacific – is no secret, too rejectionist a stance towards the cooperation framework by EU Member States could seriously harm the promotion of their values and interests in Africa. The EU would currently seem most inclined to preserve key elements of the CPA in a "light version" of the current ACP-EU agreement, by transferring those elements into separate EU regional strategies towards Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, or a combination of both. European policy discussions on this matter are also long overdue, given that the preparations for the third revision of the CPA in 2015 will be a key "warming-up session" for the negotiations for post-2020. The EPA negotiations have seriously and negatively affected ACPEU relations in the recent past and could also harm the EU's own position and trade with Africa in the medium- to long term if continued in the same manner.

The partnership between the EU and the ACP countries (that include 38 of the world's 49 least developed countries) has a long standing history and was renewed in 2000 with the Cotonou Agreement. Furthermore, the European Commission has become the world's fifth largest donor of development aid - and therefore one of the most important - in the 1990's. When total aid is looked at the ACP countries are disproportionally among those receiving the most foreign aid per capita in the world and hence the effects of European aid are of special relevance for them. The aim of this paper is therefore to investigate the effect European aid has on investment in the ACP countries. It contributes to the ongoing debate on aid effectiveness by arguing that the impact f aid does not only depend on the characteristics of the recipient but also of the donor. The EU-ACP Partnership Agreement could increase incentives for private investment in the ACP countries either through direct support measures or more indirectly through complementary spending for infrastructure and administration. The special private sector chapter in the Cotonou Agreement makes it visible that private sector support is a primary objective and brings the existing provisions into a more coherent and refined framework. However, given the limited funds that were available under the Lomé Conventions direct investment support cannot be expected to increase total investment considerably. The empirical findings show that total aid has a positive but declining effect on the share of gross domestic investment in GDP. The effect of aid from the European Commission on gross domestic investment seems to be smaller partly due to its allocation towards ACP countries with a relatively poor investment performance. ; Die Partnerschaft zwischen EU und AKP-Staaten (von denen 38 zu den 49 am wenigsten entwickelten Ländern gehören) hat eine langjährige Geschichte und wurde im Jahre 2000 mit dem Cotonou Abkommen erneuert. Zudem hat sich die Europäische Kommission in den 90er Jahren zum fünftgrößten Geber von Entwicklungshilfe in der Welt entwickelt. Die AKP-Staaten liegen bei Betrachtung der Gesamthilfe überproportional unter denen, welche die meiste Entwicklungshilfe pro Kopf in der Welt erhalten. Es werden daher die Auswirkungen der EU-Hilfe insbesondere auf die Investitionen in den AKP Staaten untersucht. Damit wird ein Beitrag zu der gegenwärtigen Debatte über die Wirksamkeit von Entwicklungshilfe geleistet. Es wird argumentiert dass die Wirksamkeit von Hilfe nicht nur von den Gegebenheiten im Empfängerland, sonder auch vom Geber abhängt. Das Abkommen von Cotonou soll die Anreize für Privatinvestitionen in den AKP-Staaten steigern, entweder durch direkte Förderungsmaßnahmen oder indirekt durch ergänzende Ausgaben für Infrastruktur und Administration. Das Sonderkapitel über den Privatsektor im Cotonou-Abkommen macht deutlich, dass die Unterstützung des privaten Sektors ein primäres Ziel ist und bringt die bestehenden Bestimmungen in einen kohärenten und verbesserten Rahmen. Einer der Schwerpunktsektoren ist daher die Förderung von Investitionen und privatem Sektor. Bei den begrenzten Geldmitteln, die durch die Lomé-Abkommen verfügbar waren, kann allerdings nicht erwartet werden, dass die Förderung direkter Investitionen die Gesamtinvestitionen wesentlich steigert. Die empirischen Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Gesamthilfe einen positiven, aber sinkenden Einfluss auf den Anteil der inländischen Investitionen am BSP hat. Die Auswirkungen der EU-Hilfe auf Investitionen in den AKP Staaten sind weniger stark. Dies kann insbesondere auf die stärkere Ausrichtung der EU-Zusammenarbeit auf die AKP Staaten mit schlechteren allgemeinen Investitionsbedingungen zurückgeführt werden.

The Economic Partnership Agreements between the European Union and 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries will not cause markets in the South to be swamped with European imports, as opponents suggest. But they will result in dramatic reductions in government revenues.

Negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreements between African, Caribbean and Pacific countries and the European Union have not been making much progress recently. How should the Partnership Agreements be structured to ensure a pro-development outcome and how could the negotiations gain more momentum in the months and years ahead?

Cotonou agreement, signed in June 2000, between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries, is characterized by the respect of Human Rights, Democratic standards and Rule of Law in one side, and the quest for compliance with the standards principles of World trade Organization (WTO) in the other side. Since then the development policy implemented by Europe for ACP Countries was created with the Treaty of Rome which established European Development Funds, in favor of these countries. For many years, this partnership, mainly economic, has given huge benefits to ACP countries to ensure their development. For almost two decades that the political standards rules were introduced into this partnership, no doubt to notice that some countries, including Togo, are still reluctant to introduce real democratic reforms to ensure effective political changes. Despite sanctions here and there from the European Union, these countries find support from China who treats with African countries, a specific partnership excluding any Civil Society. ; L'Accord de Cotonou, signé en juin 2000 entre l'Union européenne et les États d'Afrique, des Caraïbes et du Pacifique (ACP), se caractérise par un respect des droits de l'homme, des normes démocratiques et de l'État de droit d'une part, et la quête d'une conformité des normes aux principes de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC), d'autre part. En effet, la politique de développement mise en place par l'Europe au profit des États ACP a vu le jour avec le Traité de Rome et la création du Fonds européen de développement au profit des ces pays. Pendant longtemps, le partenariat, essentiellement économique, a octroyé d'énormes avantages aux pays ACP en vue d'assurer leur développement. Depuis bientôt deux décennies que les normes politiques ont été insérées dans ce partenariat, force est de constater que quelques pays, dont le Togo, demeurent toujours réticents quant à l'instauration de réelles réformes démocratiques en vue d'assurer une véritable alternance politique. En ...

This article provides a detailed analysis of the trade-related aspects of economic partnership agreement (EPA) negotiations for the six Africa–Caribbean–Pacific (ACP) negotiation groups including ECOWAS, CEMAC+, COMESA, SADC, CARIFORUM and Pacific. We use a partial equilibrium model—focusing on the demand side—at the HS6 level (covering 5,113 HS6 products). Two lists of sensitive products are constructed: focusing on the agricultural sectors and tariff revenue preservation. For the European Union (EU), EPAs must translate into 90% fully liberalised bilateral trade to be World Trade Organisation compatible. We use this criterion to simulate EPAs for each negotiating regional block. ACP exports to the EU are forecast to be 10% higher with EPAs, than under the generalised system of preference 'Everything But Arms' option. ACP countries, especially African ones, are forecast to lose an average of 71% of tariff revenues on EU imports in the long run. Imports from other regions of the world will continue to provide tariff revenues. Thus, if we compute tariff revenue losses on total ACP imports, losses are only 25% on average over the long run and as low as 19% if the product lists are optimised. The final impact depends on the importance of tariffs in government revenue and on potential compensatory effects. However, this long-term and less visible effect will depend mainly on the capacity of each ACP country to reorganise its fiscal base. ; ISI; IFPRI3 ; MTID ; PR

Economic opinion is in the process of re-interpreting low levels of uptake of non-reciprocal pre-ferential trade agreements (PTAs) partly in terms of administrative barriers to preference utiliza-tion. Primary amongst these barriers are Rules of Origin. This paper reviews the literature on Rules of Origin as administrative barriers to the utilization of preferences accorded to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries under the Coutonou Agreement, before going on to ex-amine current revisions of EU PTA Rules of Origin. These are embodied in a new (so-called 'Cotonou+') set of rules for the interim EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and a second proposed set of rules for the EU's Generalised System of Preference (GSP) arrange-ments, including Everything But Arms. The Cotonou+ rules include some important concessions by the EU, especially for those ACP countries that do not have Least Developed Country (LDC) status, but are supposed to be re-negotiated within a fixed period in line the new EU GSP rules. However, the new GSP rules as revealed in the EU Draft Regulation of 2007 contain no real concessions for non-LDCs, and they introduce potentially trade-restrictive administrative require-ments. These rules are currently (July 2008) under reconsideration by the EU, but it is clear that this exercise does not cover these elements. For this reason, harmonisation of the Cotonou+ and new GSP rules may be a source a serious discord in the negotiation of full EPAs, a process which is supposed to occur during 2008.

This article provides a very detailed analysis of the trade-related aspects of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations. We use a partial equilibrium model - focusing on the demand side - at the HS6 level (covering 5,113 HS6 products). Two lists of sensitive products are constructed, focusing on the agricultural sectors, and tariff revenue preservation. For the European Union, EPAs must translate into 90 percent fully liberalized bilateral trade to be World Trade Organization (WTO) compatible,. We use this criterion to simulate EPAs for each negotiating regional block. ACP exports to the EU are forecast to be 10 percent higher with EPAs, than under the GSP/EBA option. ACP countries are forecast to lose an average of 70 percent of tariff revenues on EU imports in the long run, while imports from other regions of the world will continue to provide tariff revenues. Thus, if we compute tariff revenue losses on total ACP imports, losses are only 26 percent on average over the long run and as low as 19 percent of the product lists are optimized. The final impact depends on the importance of tariffs in government revenue and on potential compensatory effects. However, this long term and less visible effect will depend mainly on the capacity of each ACP country to reorganize its fiscal base.

This article provides a very detailed analysis of the trade-related aspects of Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations. We use a partial equilibrium model - focusing on the demand side - at the HS6 level (covering 5,113 HS6 products). Two lists of sensitive products are constructed, focusing on the agricultural sectors, and tariff revenue preservation. For the European Union, EPAs must translate into 90 percent fully liberalized bilateral trade to be World Trade Organization (WTO) compatible,. We use this criterion to simulate EPAs for each negotiating regional block. ACP exports to the EU are forecast to be 10 percent higher with EPAs, than under the GSP/EBA option. ACP countries are forecast to lose an average of 70 percent of tariff revenues on EU imports in the long run, while imports from other regions of the world will continue to provide tariff revenues. Thus, if we compute tariff revenue losses on total ACP imports, losses are only 26 percent on average over the long run and as low as 19 percent of the product lists are optimized. The final impact depends on the importance of tariffs in government revenue and on potential compensatory effects. However, this long term and less visible effect will depend mainly on the capacity of each ACP country to reorganize its fiscal base.