The EU–ACP Economic Partnership Agreements: Fostering Trade or Eroding Africa’s Sovereignty?

Economic Partnership Agreements promise fair trade, but their fragmented design threatens regional unity. AfCFTA may be Africa’s stronger path forward.

Sovereignty is a tired argument for a region that doesn’t fund its own regional efforts.

Twenty-five years after the Cotonou Agreement laid the groundwork for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), the promise of a “fair” trade relationship between Europe and Africa remains contested. With the7th EU-African Union Summit in Luanda in 2025 scheduled for Luanda in November 2025, it is worth asking: do EPAs foster development, or do they undermine African economies, sovereignty and regional integration?

Following Dr. Davina Osei critical reflection on the development relationship between the Africa and the EU, (Africa Is the Future, But Who Holds the Pen? and Same Dance, New Stage? The AU–EU Relationship at 25 and What Must Change, this blog looks into the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) and the challenge to African autonomy.

What the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreement Entail.

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the European Union (EU) and Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific Islands (ACP) countries are trade agreements designed to end non-reciprocal trade arrangements, foster development in ACP countries, and promote regional integration. However, there is a growing body of evidence suggesting that, in practice, EPAs threaten African state sovereignty and undermine regional integration.

Under the Economic Partnership Agreements, ACP countries can sell their products to the EU without tariffs or quotas, giving them easier access to European markets. At the same time, these countries must gradually reduce or eliminate taxes on goods from the EU over a 20-year period (2015 to 2035). To support this transition, the EU provides financial and technical assistance, including help to meet food and plant safety standards, improve infrastructure, develop industries, and offset potential revenue losses from reduced tariffs.

There are five African regional EPAs, covering five regional blocks, namely, West Africa (ECOWAS+UEMOA), Central Africa (CEMAC), Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and Southern African Development Community (SADC).

For the agreement to be ratified and implemented, each Regional bloc, ideally requires the signature of all the member States in each Region.

However, this is a matter of interpretation, e.g. the EU-EAC partnership is run through the EU-Kenya EPA whereby the other member states have an opportunity to join if they choose to do so at a later stage. This flexibility is called variable geometry and has the tendency to undermine regional unity, creates economic distortions, and weakens Africa’s collective bargaining leverage with the EU.

The EU and Africa’s Trade Obligations Under the EPA

The EU’s role in the development and implementation of the EU-ACP EPA covers tariff, non-tariff and development-oriented commitments. Regarding tariffs, the agreement indicates that products sourced in the ACP countries will be imported into the EU without customs duties. Among the non-tariff obligations, the EU will also provide financial and technical support to help the ACP member States to meet its Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) standards. There are also provisions for funding projects linked to trade, industry, energy, and transport infrastructure. Further, funding to cover the fiscal impact of implementing the agreement for the period of tariff removal will also be facilitated by the EU in collaboration with other donors.

The EPA requires the African member states, on the other hand, to reduce and eliminate customs duties on specific products coming from the EU. The process of tariff elimination is expected to be gradual, spanning 20 years (between 2015 and 2035).  As the 2019 EU Annual Report on Free Trade Agreements underscores, several EPA negotiations have experienced delays, with progress varying widely across regions Particularly for Africa, the delay is attributed to the internal problems within the sub-regions. However, this attribution is one-sided as it pins the problem on the African countries and overlooks the question marks surrounding the EU's negotiation process that favors fragmentation.

The delays is not that member states cannot recognize the benefits of the EPA. Rather, the problem lies in the fact that countries experience different benefits and constraints, making it difficult to form a united front. A clear example is found in the East African Community (EAC). Kenya signed the EU-Kenya EPA despite strong opposition from Tanzania. This created friction within the bloc. Kenya’s decision was driven by its status as a lower-middle-income country, which excludes it from preferential market access under the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme available to its neighbors that remain classified as Least Developed Countries (LDCs).

Beyond this, attributing delays only to Africa sidesteps more fundamental issues. Many member states remain hesitant because of the perceived economic downsides of the EPA and its potential to erode both state sovereignty and the broader project of African regional integration.

The Economic Downside of the EPA and the Issue of Africa’s Sovereignty.

The most significant downside of the EPAs in Africa is the risk of markets being flooded with cheap EU products (Grain, 2017). At its extreme, this amounts to "dumping", which undermines the sustainability of local industries. Such dynamics threaten domestic value chains, reduce employment opportunities, and weaken fragile industrial capacity, drawing parallels with the structural adjustment era when African economies were pushed into patterns of resource extraction and dependency.

This concern is even more pressing given Africa’s already high levels of unemployment and weak industrialization. The result could be a situation where a largely poor region becomes dependent on cheap imports while struggling to sustain its own production.

For example, Ghana’s once vibrant tomato and poultry sectors, for instance, are buckling under the weight of cheap foreign importations from EU member states. In 2023 alone, the Netherlands exported USD $65.7 million worth of poultry meat into Ghana. Another telling example involves second‑hand clothing imports and how different East African countries responded to Western pushback. Rwanda, determined to protect its budding textile sector, raised tariffs on second‑hand clothes, effectively imposing a de facto ban. Despite threats from the United States to suspend its benefits under the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), Rwanda refused to yield. In contrast, Kenya initially moved to impose restrictions but ultimately capitulated under pressure. This divergence underlines how countries with weaker bargaining positions, especially under variable geometry can be pushed into liberalizing policies even when such moves threaten their own developmental interests.

Beyond the economic , there is also the issue of the EPAs undermining the sovereignty of States and the Regional blocs of the participating countries as a result of the shape of the negotiations.

State Sovereignty Under Pressure

At the state level, critics note a stark absence of stakeholder engagement. Gathii (2013) notes that stakeholders have not been effectively involved in EPA negotiations, although this was projected in the Cotonou Agreement. In 2007, a suit was filed by a small-scale farmers’ association and a human rights organization to prevent the Government of Kenya from signing on to the EPA because stakeholder consultation and participation were not comprehensive.  This case is still ongoing; however, the EU responded with a warning to Kenya that it would impose import tariffs on a range of its exports to the European Union unless it signed the EPA. The resort to instrumental rationality (manipulation of utility calculations Borzel and Risse 2009) in the negotiation arrangements is a sugar-coated form of coercion (Haastrup 2013) which does not allow African parties the freedom to negotiate.

ACP member countries without the economic muscles will have to go along with any arrangement proposed by the EU even if they are not in favour of it. The Minister of Trade and Industry of Ghana, Hannah Tetteh in 2009 indicated that Ghana “….. won’t sign bogus trade pacts” (Gahtii citing Daily Graphic, 22^nd July 2009). While this assertion assumed that the ACP countries have a say, a study by Meyn (2008) highlighted that that for at least two regions (ECOWAS and CEMAC), the ACP country input was negligible, as signatory States like Ghana had to accept what were largely EU templates, and these were signed only a couple of days after it was presented. 

Regional Sovereignty Under Pressure

At the regional level, delays in bloc-wide EPA ratification encouraged the EU to push interim EPAs on individual countries. With the interim EPAs, individual countries other than regional blocs can sign up to the EPA and enjoy its benefits if a regional agreement is yet to be reached. The divide and rule tactics and process of negotiating EPAs among African countries goes against its basic objective of facilitating regional integration in Africa. Ghana for instance has signed the interim EPA agreement that will eliminate duties gradually over 15 years on their imports from the EU, from 15 December 2021. In the same year Ghana also had a 3 billion Eurobond issuance which was its largest ever and notable for including a zero-coupon tranche. The timing raises questions about whether interim EPAs align with fiscal strategies that deepen dependency rather than reduce it.

With this development, other African States that have not signed will be forced to tax imports from Ghana; otherwise, they will be flooded by the products Ghana will import duty-free from the EU (Berthelot, 2018). This pits member states against each other and, rather than promoting regional and sub-regional integration, it facilitates disintegration and undermines the regional governments’ sovereignty in constructing and negotiating their own regional trade regime.

The AfCFTA Alternative: Good Initiative Impeded by Fragmentation

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) might be the solution. Operational since January 2021, AfCFTA aims to integrate 55 countries into a single market, gradually eliminate tariffs, simplify customs procedures, and establish unified payment systems and trade observatories.

While EPAs embed Africa into EU-led trade architecture on EU-dictated terms, AfCFTA embodies a collective, internally driven model, giving African states more control over negotiation and policy design. Some analysts argue that Africa should “phase out EPAs and move toward Union-to-Union agreements with Europe” in order to safeguard AfCFTA’s integrative goals. However, realistically, the issues that bedevil the formation of a continental customs union would need more pages to get into, but the point is, it is not as simple as arguing that it should be done

AfCFTA is a good initiative but its integration is partial. By mid-2025, only 24 countries were actively trading under AfCFTA frameworks, reflecting the uneven uptake of commitments. According to ARIA XI (2025), this unevenness is symptomatic of deeper governance deficits: weak institutional capacity, slow tariff schedule implementation, and limited customs harmonization continue to constrain progress. Informal cross-border trade, which represents 30 to 70 percent of intra-African flows, further complicates enforcement. These challenges are most acute in smaller sub-Saharan economies, which lack the administrative and financial capacity to absorb adjustment costs and remain highly exposed to external shocks. ARIA XI warns that without dedicated support measures such as adjustment funds, stronger institutions, and effective monitoring the AfCFTA risks advancing on paper but stalling in practice.

Even so, ARIA XI stresses that AfCFTA remains the most viable catalyst for building the African Economic Community. If paired with stronger institutions and consistent political will, it offers the continent its best opportunity yet to shift from fragmented, externally shaped trade regimes toward a coherent and truly African-led integration framework.

Conclusion

The EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements were billed as instruments of development. In reality, they risk undermining sovereignty, fragmenting regional blocs, and exposing African industries to overwhelming competition.

By contrast AfCFTA stands as an inherently African project, one focused on internal market building, value addition, and collective agency. If African regionalism is to thrive, nations must prioritize AfCFTA implementation, fortify integration, resist interim bilateral EPAs that erode unity, and insist on future Africa-EU agreement formats that respect African autonomy and support continental value-chain development.

The upcoming 7th EU-Africa Summit in Luanda, Angola, on 24–25 November 2025, presents a critical opportunity for African leaders to reaffirm their commitment to regional integration and assert their collective bargaining power in future negotiations. This summit could serve as a pivotal moment to shift the narrative from external imposition to internal empowerment, ensuring that Africa's economic future is shaped by its own priorities and aspirations.

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Governance and Development Advisory or any institutions mentioned. This piece is written in a personal capacity to contribute to critical dialogue on the AU–EU partnership and climate justice.