Common Contracts

The West Africa-EU Economic Partnership Agreement is absurd

May 15th, 2016

• Filed
  May 15th, 2016

After the independence of sub-Saharan Africa's (SSA) countries, of which of the 16 West African (WA) States – the 15 of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and Mauritania – all former colonies (except Liberia), the EU has maintained the non-reciprocal trade preferences allowing them to export duty free to the EU 97% of their agricultural products and 100% of their industrial products while being able to tax their imports from the EU, in the context of broader cooperation agreements, called Lomé Conventions from 1975 to 2000. But the 9 Latin American (LA) exporters of bananas to the EU – 3 Andean countries (Colombia, Ecuador, Peru) and 6 Central America countries (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama) – have sued the EU at the GATT first in 1993 and then at the WTO from its creation in 1995, when the EU was sentenced three times. The reason: these developing countries (DCs) had to pay import duties (ID) to the EU which was importing duty