"Economic partnership agreements and regional integration among ACP countries"

Faber, Gerrit. (2001) "Economic partnership agreements and regional integration among ACP countries". In: UNSPECIFIED, Madison, Wisconsin. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

The EPA approach to the renewal of the trade regime of the Lomé Convention presents a number of questions. The first is, whether FTAs between the ACP countries and the EU are likely to produce better results than the non-reciprocal Lomé preferences. Second, even if promising on theoretical grounds, is it likely that (groups of) ACP countries will be able to conclude viable FTAs (or EPAs) with the EU? Which conditions will have to be met in order to realize the potential benefits? This paper will address these questions. It provides an economic analysis of the FTA approach for the future EU-ACP relations. The composition of the paper is as follows. In the second section the background for the new approach is given. The third section presents the economic theory of integration in order to explain the effectiveness of the present and the new approach. The fourth section formulates the conditions that have to be met to make FTAs successful. The fifth section addresses the question whether the new approach will work in practice. Conclusions are drawn in section six.

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