Are Economic Partnership Agreements likely to promote or constrain regional integration in southern Africa?: options, limits and challenges Botswana, Mauritius and Mozambique are facing

The vast majority of the South African Development Community (SADC) and Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) countries belong to the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. As such they are also members of the Cotonou Agreement which grants Europe’s former colonies preferential, non-reciprocal access to the EU market. To bring the Cotonou Agreement in line with WTO provisions, the countries are called upon to enter into negotiations of free trade agreements (FTA) with the EU. The so-called "Economic Partnership Agreements" (EPAs) are supposed to enter into force by 2008 and shall liberalise around 90% of EU-ACP trade within 10-12 years. This paper focuses on the issue of integration of economic regimes, and the negative impacts that the EPAs could have on the countries of the SADC, COMESA, and ACP.This paper argues that the switch from preferential to reciprocal trade relations implies several challenges for southern African countries, such as revenue losses and increased competition in the domestic market. It questions whether the European approach that pushes southern African countries to opt for one integration framework promotes regional integration in southern Africa or whether single countries’ different economic and political interests constrain EPA negotiations and hamper regional integration efforts.The issue of overlapping membership is considered, and to what extent it is a stepping stone or stumbling block towards regional integration is extensively discussed in the literature. It is generally argued that the double (or even triple) membership of southern African countries in regional integration frameworks possibly constrains rather than facilitates intra-regional trade and wastes the already limited human and financial resources.The paper discusses the concept of EPAs from a theoretical point of view. It looks at the innovative approach of EPAs in comparison to Cotonou and assesses which policy concept the EU is likely to pursue in this regard. The paper also investigates whether these inherent assumptions of EPAs are likely to become true. It is therefore argued that the different interests of SADC countries in EPAs are not only likely to constrain EPA negotiations while concurrently having negative consequences for SADC’s regional integration efforts.The paper concludes with a review of potential scenarios for negotiations, but still argues that the implementation of EPAs in southern Africa violates the EU formulated requirements that ACP countries will be treated according to their different development status.