Economic Partnership Agreements: what now?

For more than ten years, African countries had been under pressure from the European Union (EU) to sign Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), which would eventually guarantee preferential tariffs for European exports to Africa. Until now they had resisted. But since 1 October 2014, the deadline, non-LDC countries (those not classed as least developed) that have not ratified the agreements face losing free access to the European market.

Some have reluctantly accepted, with the immediate task of revitalising their industrial base in the hope of offsetting — through exports to Europe — a trade balance set to run a heavy deficit against European imports. Others have held out, driven by a refusal to give up essential revenue.

Meant to stimulate African development, these agreements barely conceal the threat looming over African economies: being opened up to European products without equivalent reciprocity. Whether individual, within CEMAC (the Central African Economic and Monetary Community), or collective, as in WAEMU (the West African Economic and Monetary Union), the strategies adopted by African countries in the EPA negotiations do not avoid another challenge: their productive sectors must in turn be able to break into a very demanding European market.

Between those who still denounce the entry into force of these agreements and more optimistic voices who believe African industry has market share to win in Europe, the race for survival has begun in Africa — all the more so as trade figures between the two continents reveal an imbalance that is likely to persist if nothing is done.