The European Union is not only a model; it has also built specific links with other regional groupings. In the case of the African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries, the EU has devised interregional strategies that have been subject to recurrent controversies, from the Lomé and Cotonou Conventions to the Economic Partnership Agreements. The EPAs introduce rules that markedly differ from the previous preferential arrangements, i.e. Free Trade Areas and reciprocity between the EU and ACP regional groupings. EPAs involve objectives that work via different channels - promoting development, integration in world markets, regional integration. The paper argues that in poorer regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa, EPAs are characterised by intrinsic discrepancies between ex ante objectives and ex post outcomes. EPAs are confronted with constraints that prevent the achievement of their goals and explain the difficulty of the negotiations: i) a conceptual framework that remains debated (the links FTAs-growth, the theory of the suboptimal character of South-South arrangements); ii) the lack of complementarity between countries within regional groupings; iii) the multiplication of other regional and bilateral arrangements; iv) unbalanced export structures of African countries (commodity dependence, narrow industrial bases): reciprocity with the EU entails risks; benefits can be assessed only on a country/sector basis; v) the organisation of international trade via global value chains and multinational firms (from the US, EU, China), which foster bilateral ties and harness regional arrangements according to their interests (including the destabilisation of local industries); vi) finally, weakly institutionalised political economies (porous borders, corruption), which distort trade flows.
