The EU’s Coordination Dilemma: Linking Trade and Development in the ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreements and ‘Aid for Trade’

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has generally been considered a pioneer in linking development to other policies. The use of trade policy as a tool to leverage development elsewhere is probably its earliest attempt in this respect. The EU has traditionally done so by granting developing countries preferential access to its market. In the framework of its Aid for Trade (AfT) strategy, the EU has recently started providing more targeted and systematic development assistance to build and support these countries’ productive and trading capacities. Linkages between trade and development have thus been established in both directions: from trade to development and from development to trade.