The Samoa Agreement between the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States contains free trade goals that alarm African officials in Brussels, write Mark Langan and Sophia Price.

After much delay, the Samoa Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS ) was signed in November 2023. It contains robust language about the need for the parties to implement Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). These free trade deals between Europe and regional economic communities in Africa (and the Caribbean and Pacific) require OACPS signatories to dismantle their tariffs. In return, OACPS countries receive equivalent low tariff access to European consumers (which they already enjoyed).

In 2000, when the EPA process was launched, the European Commission claimed that World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules necessitated this shift to ‘reciprocal’ free trade. African governments in Nigeria and Tanzania, however, raised concerns about the implications of tariff liberalisation for their farmers and manufacturing industries. As a result, several key OACPS nations continue to refuse EPAs for fear of the consequences of import flooding of EU produce into their domestic markets.

Some lower middle-income states such as Ghana and Kenya have acquiesced to unilateral EPAs with the EU, despite the refusal of their respective regional economic communities to implement region-wide deals. Kenyan officials feared for the wellbeing of their cut-flower sector if they refused to sign an EPA since otherwise, the EU would place Kenyan exporters onto a stricter tariff schedule. Ghana, meanwhile, was worried about its tuna and banana exporters should it likewise default to higher EU tariffs. It thus implemented a unilateral EPA, which led to tensions within the Economic Community of West African States about alleged smuggling of foreign goods from Ghana into neighbouring territories to avoid tariffs. In Ghana’s case, there is a widespread perception among civil society and business stakeholders that the EU threatened to reduce aid if the government in Accra did not capitulate to the EU’s free trade demands. This perception has recently been validated by the leak of the European Commission draft briefing book explaining that ‘development’ cooperation must be used to facilitate Europe’s offensive geoeconomic interests.

Despite the controversial history of EPAs, the new Samoa Agreement contains key objectives relating to the conclusion of new free trade deals. The EU wielded its leverage in the negotiations to get these agreements inserted, including strategic promises of future EU aid for OACPS signatories under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Co-operation Instrument. This global aid instrument, which gives OACPS countries no say in the scheme’s spending priorities, provides a vehicle for the financial facilitation of the Samoa Agreement’s broader objectives surrounding joint cooperation on economic growth, environmental sustainability, good governance, human rights and poverty alleviation. The Samoa Agreement text alludes to future trading arrangements that would go beyond sub-regional EPA deals, including a potential African Union (AU)-EU free trade area. This initiative would piggyback upon the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and unite the sub-regional EPAs into a vast bicontinental free trade zone spanning from South Africa to Finland.

African concerns about the EU

African officials in Brussels are, however, frustrated with the EU’s insistence upon premature free trade deals. Officials point to the paradox that EPAs exacerbate intercontinental migration by collapsing domestic farms and destroying livelihoods in strategic sectors such as poultry. At the same time, EU officials engage in harsh rhetoric about the need to stop African migration. African officials also point to the cynicism of the EU in relation to the use of non-tariff barriers. Namely those OACPS states that have implemented EPAs still do not enjoy easy access to European consumers because the EU imposes non-tariff barriers to African exporters in the form of deforestation, carbon emissions, overfishing and hygiene rules. EPA signatories in Africa must open up their own markets to the dangers of import flooding from EU states and yet realise few export advantages. African officials also lament the lack of tangible EU technical support to enable their farmers and industries to cope with the overwhelming regulations emanating from Brussels. Many argue that as a result of EU policies their countries remained locked into colonial models of trade predicated upon raw material exports, as encouraged by the EU under the Critical Raw Materials Act. EPAs were seen to offer little avenue for genuine growth and diversification.

African officials are also concerned about the EU’s proposed bicontinental free trade zone with the African Union. Officials explained that the fundamental rationale of the AfCFTA is to facilitate economic diversification and upscaling among African states by the removal of artificial, colonial-era trading boundaries between them. However, a premature free trade deal between the AU and EU would nullify this developmentalist logic by allowing the influx of cheap European manufacturing and subsidised agricultural produce that would decimate fledgling local industries. This would put an end to the hopes of the AfCFTA with regard to its attempt to encourage value addition in a shift away from colonial patterns of production. African officials complain about the EU’s divide-and-rule tactics. Namely, the EU often ignores African representatives in Brussels and instead talks with African capitals directly – strategically bypassing those officials versed in the details of EU proposals.

Despite the EU’s threats to defund the OACPS Secretariat in Brussels, African officials remained optimistic about the possibility of collective action among OACPS embassies to challenge their iniquitous relationship with the EU. Many pointed to the renewed OACPS Georgetown Agreement – the foundation document of that organisation – and its revised text which now allows OACPS partnerships to be established with geopolitical actors beyond the EU. The OACPS have recently explored new agreements with countries in the Middle East. The developmentalist promise of the AfCFTA also gave many officials confidence that better days lay ahead and that economic success within this AU initiative would give African states more leverage in future dealings with the EU. By contrast, officials often voiced pessimistic views about the future influence and status of Europe, given the rise of the far right, and the strength of new partners such as China.

The election of a new OACPS Secretary-General in March 2025 now comes at a moment of truth for the EU-OACPS relationship. If Europe insists upon free trade deals that encourage intercontinental migration while locking in colonial patterns of trade, then the frustration of African officials about the benefits of this ‘partnership’ will likely increase. Given the geopolitical alternatives that now exist to cooperation with Europe (witness the rise of the Sahel Alliance and the eclipse of France), this is a dangerous moment for a European Commission that appears deaf to partners’ concerns while at the same time embracing far right political movements in its own member states.

This blog is based on a journal article by the authors in the Journal of Developing Societies.

Photo credit: Paul Kagame used with permission CC BY-NC-ND 2.0