ABSTRACT
The EU is a firm advocate of free trade deals as a spur for poverty reduction in its relations with African countries. Since the signing of the Cotonou Agreement in 2000, the European Commission has energetically pursued Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with African sub-regions and with countries in the Caribbean and the Pacific. This chapter examines multistakeholder initiatives which have united African and European stakeholders in challenges to the normative ‘development’ premise of EU free trade policies in Africa. It assesses liberal reformist initiatives which have sought to ensure that free trade deals between African countries and the EU member states better align to overarching Decent Work and ethical trade prerogatives. Additionally, it considers critical alternative initiatives which have sought to challenge the very premise of premature free market opening in African sub-regions under the EPAs. In so doing, the chapter points to the potential pitfalls of the EPAs in terms of the EU’s ostensible desire to achieve poverty reduction through equitable trade relations. It also contextualizes these apparent EPA pitfalls in terms of the current negotiations for a post-Cotonou framework.
