Understanding the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements: The Case of CARIFORUM

Abstract

On 15 October 2008, the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific states (CARIFORUM) became the first and, at the time of writing, only region to sign a comprehensive EPA with the EU.¹ The agreement came less than a year after the expiry of the WTO waiver and thus provided early symbolic affirmation of the merits of the EU’s post-Lome trade vision. The timing of the CARIFORUM agreement was also significant in that it appeared to underscore the importance that European Commission officials placed on a swift conclusion to the EPA negotiations in order to safeguard preferences from further WTO litigation. As a general explanation for why CARIFORUM chose to sign a comprehensive agreement, however, the necessity of WTO compliance has become progressively less plausible over time. Indeed, the central thrust of the academic literature accompanying the EPAs has been to question the importance of this — especially when weighed against the independent, political and commercial interests of the EU (see inter alia Gibb 2000; Hurt 2003; Ravenhill 2004; Goodison 2007; Faber and Orbie 2009; Heron and Siles-Brügge 2012). But in dismissing the importance of WTO compatibility such accounts have generally failed to offer a satisfactory alternative explanation for the behaviour of ACP countries (as opposed to the EU) in the EPA negotiations. The CARIFORUM agreement is particularly noteworthy in this respect because, in signing a full EPA, the region effectively broke ranks with the rest of the ACP, which has so far resisted much of the EU’s post-Cotonou trade agenda.