Suchergebnisse

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.

Access to the European union (EU) for fish products originated from the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States is fundamental as fish is globally one of the most important commodities exported by these States. The recent implementation of economic partnership agreements will not change the magnitude of the challenges that these countries have to face to comply with EU rules such as the new Rules of Origin or the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures that are becoming more and more stringent. Value addition of fishery and aquaculture products seems to be the most promising way to both comply with EU standards and get an optimal return of sea and freshwater resources exploitation.

From the early 1960s through the late 1980s, Lomé Convention, the chief achievement of Euro-African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries' entente, has been an interdependent form of partnership that has offered ACP states a privileged position in the European Economic Commission's Market. Although considered a cornerstone and model for Europe's North-South economic cooperation, changes that occurred in the aftermath of the Cold War had drastic effects on the nature of this historic partnership. In the period between 1989 and 1995, profound changes occurred in international relations following the end of the Cold War, followed by the subsequent liberalization of East European states' economies, the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, and the restructuring of Europe's internal as well as external policies, in part, affected the ACP's privileged position in the European Union. The concept of Cold War context used in this article will be narrower (economic implications) rather than that commonly employed in the study of superpower rivalry. The framework employed throughout the paper is a conceptual and critical survey of the Lomé Convention's history, from its inception to the changing dynamics of the post Cold-War world. The paper critically examines the divergence of interpretations of the relevance and obsolescence of the Convention in the post-Cold War context. "The World is changing. It has changed for the ACP States; it will change for the Community; it is changing all around us."

The last day of June 1995 saw the completion of the review of the Lomé Convention, a comprehensive trade and aid relationship between the European Union and 70 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. Given that the Lomé regime is one of the most long lived and comprehensive arrangements in North‐South relations it might have been expected that there would have been a considerable reaction by those interested in development issues. In fact, the general reaction has been muted. This is because there is a certain lack of enthusiasm for Lomé, not least on the part of powerful forces in the EU. It has been suggested that the Convention is in decline due to waning EU commitment to development in the ACP states. In this article we shall examine whether or not the Lomé relationship is actually being allowed to die on the vine by the EU. First, we shall examine developments over the history of the relationship in order to discern trends that have emerged over the longer term. We shall then turn to the recent history of the Convention since 1990. Finally, we will analyse the terms agreed at the recent Mid‐Term Review in order to assess what the future seems to hold for the Lomé regime.