Economic Partnerships

Country or region

African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP)

Trade topics

Economic Partnerships

The Samoa Agreement

The EU’s relationship with the Member States of the Organisation for African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) is governed by the OACPS-EU Partnership Agreement, also known as the Samoa Agreement. It was signed in Apia, Samoa on 15 November 2023 and entered into provisional application on 1 January 2024. The modernised partnership provides a new legal framework for the EU’s relations with OACPS members for the next 20 years. The agreement comprises a common foundation and three regional protocols (for Africa, for the Caribbean, and for the Pacific).

The Samoa Agreement is the successor of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, concluded in 2000. The Cotonou agreement offered EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries the opportunity to negotiate development-oriented free trade arrangements called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs). EPAs are stand-alone international agreements that remain anchored to the essential and fundamental elements of the Samoa Agreement, as was the case for the Cotonou Partnership Agreement.

Economic Partnership Agreements in a nutshell

The EU is the biggest trading partner of the ACP group of countries, with 19% of their total trade flows.

Eight Economic Partnership Agreements are in application with 33 out of 79 ACP countries. These include 14 Caribbean countries, 15 African countries and four Pacific countries. Other ACP countries benefit from privileged access to the EU via the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), mostly using the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme.
EPAs are WTO-compatible agreements. They go beyond conventional free-trade agreements to focus on ACP countries’ development, taking account of their socio-economic circumstances. They include co-operation and assistance (for example, in areas such as sanitary norms and standards) to help EPA countries benefit from the agreements.
EPAs are tailor-made to suit specific regional circumstances.
EPAs open the EU’s markets to EPA countries immediately.
EPAs create joint institutions that monitor the implementation of the agreements and address trade issues in a cooperative way.
EPAs are drivers of change that contribute to reform and good economic governance.

Top 10 benefits of EPAs for partner countries

EPAs: leveraging trade and investment for sustainable development

The overall objective of EPAs is to leverage trade and investment for sustainable development, and hence contribute to eradicating poverty.

EPAs include the following features that go beyond access to EU markets:

EPAs are permanent partnerships that encourage a progressive shift from aid to trade and investment as engines of growth, jobs and poverty reduction. They entail rights and obligations for both EU and ACP countries.
EPAs offer zero tariffs and unlimited quantities (duty and quota-free) for all products (except for arms).
EPAs also have flexible conditions (rules of origin) under which exporters in EPA countries can more easily source from elsewhere the inputs they need to make their final products without losing their free access to the EU.
EPA partners do not pay tariffs or duties on their exports to the EU, while they open their markets only partially to the EU (on average 80%), with long transition periods for doing so. Safeguard measures can be activated if surges in imports of EU products disturb local markets.
EPAs support ACP countries' efforts to develop new industries and diversify their economies by shifting their reliance on commodities to higher-value products and services.
EPAs contribute to a stable and conducive investment climate by providing certainty on trade rules governing exports and imports from the EU. This helps to attract foreign investors to establish production in a given country.
EPAs aim to contribute to regional economic integration by linking smaller markets in larger EPA regions that were established by the ACP countries themselves.
EU trade policy and development cooperation mutually reinforce one another. Through its Aid for Trade initiative, the EU supports partner countries in preparing and implementing regional and bilateral trade. Aid for Trade strengthens ACP countries’ trade policy capacity, and enhances private sector development via access to finance, skills, services, infrastructure and other inputs that help SMEs to become competitive in global markets.

The focus is currently on implementing the EPAs and extending their scope.

Once an EPA has been signed and ratified and applies, the focus of the process moves to implementation. This means putting the partnership into practice, to enable the private sector and consumers alike to reap the benefits of these agreements. EPAs are already delivering business benefits in the countries concerned, ranging from textiles from Madagascar, grapes from Namibia and processed fish from Papua New Guinea to medical instruments from Mauritius.
Read more on each EPA’s status of implementation in the EU’s annual FTA Implementation and Enforcement Report. The accompanying Staff Working Document features sections on the EU-Southern African Development Community (SADC) EPA, the EU-Cote d’Ivoire EPA, the EU-Ghana EPA, the EU-Cameroon EPA, the EU-Cariforum EPA, and the EU-Pacific EPA).
The scope of EPAs can be extended by:
- Supporting accession to EPAs by interested parties. For example, Samoa joined the EU-Pacific EPA in 2018; the Solomon Islands joined in 2020; Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu will start applying the agreement after they have notified the EU that they have completed their internal adoption procedures; and accession processes are underway with the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Timor-Leste, and Vanuatu. Comoros joined the EU-Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) EPA in 2019. Angola has requested accession to the EU-SADC EPA.
- Adding more trade-related topics to EPAs – for example, trade in services, investment, trade and sustainable development – to modernise them, such as during ongoing negotiations to modernise the EPA with five Eastern and Southern African (ESA-5) countries.

EPAs in Africa: Towards a continental vision

In Africa, EPAs are key tools of the EU’s Comprehensive Strategy with Africa. The economic pillar of this strategy identifies trade – alongside regional and continental economic integration – as major elements to promote the sustainable development of African countries. The 2021 Trade Policy Review Communication confirmed that Africa is of particular importance to the EU’s trade policy.

In Sub-Saharan Africa, there are currently 15 countries implementing an EPA. Most other countries benefit from preferential unilateral schemes.

Infographic on the EU-Africa trade partnership

EPAs with Sub-Saharan African countries and other EU free trade agreements with Northern African countries contribute to the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). EPAs already contain useful trade tools for building the AfCFTA. They also reinforce the trade capacity of EU partners.

Factsheet on synergies between the AfCFTA and EU-Africa trade agreements

The pursuit of sustainable investment agreements with Africa aims to step up engagement with African partners. The core purpose of investment facilitation is to enhance the investment climate and encourage ongoing reforms aimed at attracting and retaining foreign direct investment (FDI). Agreements such as the EU-Angola sustainable investment facilitation agreement, which entered into force in September 2024, are designed to further enhance sustainable trade and investment links between both continents and within Africa itself.

The 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries*

Angola – Antigua and Barbuda – Belize – Cape Verde – Comoros – Bahamas – Barbados – Benin – Botswana – Burkina Faso – Burundi – Cameroon – Central African Republic – Chad – Congo (Brazzaville) – Congo (Kinshasa) – Cook Islands – Cote d'Ivoire – Cuba – Djibouti – Dominica – Dominican Republic – Eritrea – Eswatini – Ethiopia – Fiji – Gabon – Gambia – Ghana – Grenada – Republic of Guinea – Guinea-Bissau – Equatorial Guinea – Guyana – Haiti – Jamaica – Kenya – Kiribati – Lesotho – Liberia – Madagascar – Malawi – Maldives – Mali – Marshall Islands – Mauritania – Mauritius – Micronesia – Mozambique – Namibia – Nauru – Niger – Nigeria – Niue – Palau – Papua New Guinea – Rwanda – St. Kitts and Nevis – St. Lucia – St. Vincent and the Grenadines – Solomon Islands – Samoa – Sao Tome and Principe – Senegal – Seychelles – Sierra Leone – Somalia – Sudan – Suriname – Tanzania – Timor-Leste – Togo – Tonga – Trinidad and Tobago – Tuvalu – Uganda – Vanuatu – Zambia – Zimbabwe

*South Africa withdrew from OACPS in September 2022 but remains a partner of the EU-SADC EPA.

ACP-EU trade in figures

Total trade between the EU and ACP countries was worth €114 billion in 2023, with a surplus in ACP countries' favour of €13 billion.
Total trade has increased by 66% since 2010.
The EU is ACP countries' biggest trade partner, with 19% of their total trade flows.
EU share of ACP exports: 23%
EU share of ACP imports: 16%

Committees and Dialogues

EPA partners meet regularly to discuss the implementation of the agreements.

Meetings and documents on implementation:

Implementation overview:

Overview of EPAs - state of play