Trading in development: norms and institutions in the making/unmaking of European Union–African, Caribbean and Pacific trade and development cooperation

Abstract

This paper offers a contribution to recent debates on European Union (EU) external trade and development policy, with a specific focus on the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries. The question asked is why the EU encountered such difficulties in the attempt to translate its normative preferences for freer trade and closer economic integration into a series of binding agreements? Drawing on both economic constructivist and historical institutionalist insights, it is argued that the case for reform initially rested on a strong convergence between institutions and ideas, enabling the EU to discursively present desired policy reforms as necessary to satisfy World Trade Organisation trade rules. However, in due course, the institutional dynamics behind the latter began to diverge from the EU's policy preferences and blunt its norm-based argument -thus creating the space for transnational coalitions to, first, question and, ultimately, undermine aspects the EU's trade and development prospectus for the ACP.

Beyond Economic Partnership Agreements: the European Union and the trade–development nexus

“…In the case of trade sanctions, Portela and Orbie (2014) find a surprising level of coherence between trade, development, and foreign policies, far greater than could be expected. Their findings resonate with arguments made by Heron (2014) , who maintains that the EU's institutional fragmentation may have been overrated. Thus, Siles-Brügge (2014) emphasises the balance of domestic-societal interests, with exporters rather than protectionists being a crucial determinant, in the adoption of the GSP reform.…”

“…Ahnlid and Elgström (2014), drawing on role theory, argue that transformed power relations have created a situation characterised by role uncertainty; thus, to the challenge posed to its leadership claims by the rise of powers, the EU has reacted by projecting a more realist approach in international trade negotiations. Heron (2014), by blending economic constructivist and historical approaches, contends that while initially the reform of the EU-ACP trade regime rested on a strong convergence between institutions and ideas, in due course there was significant divergence, with institutional dynamics prevailing over norm-based arguments. Holden (2014), on the basis of critical discourse analysis, documents how the global Aid for Trade agenda has been translated and reconfigured at the EU level.…”

“…Holden (2014) shows how the EU has adapted the WTO's Aid for Trade agenda to fit with its long-running interest in regional integration. Heron (2014) explains how the invocation of WTO compliance as an external constraint and driver of reform has ultimately weakened the EU's position vis-à-vis the ACP by limiting its room for manoeuvre in dealing with the scepticism widespread among ACP countries about the prospects of reciprocal free trade. However, Woolcock (2014) notes that, despite their lack of market power and negotiation capacity, the EU has guaranteed more policy space to LDCs than it has for other more developed countries.…”

Power in Global Trade Governance: Is the EU a Unitary Actor, a Tool for Dominance, or a Site of Contestation? GATS and the TTIP Negotiations

“…For example, ongoing negotiations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have generally failed to reach agreement due to wider difficulties the EU faces in reconciling the normative framework of its claimed development policy with its neoliberal economic agenda (Heron, 2014). Bailey and Bossuyt (2013) have been particularly critical of the EU's development policies, identifying a discourse in which trade is presented as being at the 'service' of development norms whilst in practice making development being subservient to trade preferences.…”

The Commonwealth Caribbean and Europe: The End of the Affair?

“…As Bharrat Jagdeo, former prime minister of Guyana argued, the EPA is 'another instance of the European Union using its trade might and economic might bullying a developing country into an agreement' (BBC Caribbean.com, 2008). (2) A weakened and marginalised WTO undermined the intellectual rationale for the EPA (Heron, 2014). (3) Even though the EPA was sold as a development agreement there is little belief, on either side, that this will be the case.…”