Regional Integration and Economic Partnership Agreements: Southern Africa at the Crossroads

Edited by Talitha Bertelsmann-Scott and Peter Draper
SAIIA: 2006
ISBN: 1-919969-59-4
Pages: 163
Price: ZAR 80.00

Based on conference proceedings (click here for more details on the conference, as well as links to external resources), this book examines the dynamics of the European Union (EU) trade policy and the implications thereof for Southern Africa. The latter's problems with both political and economic integration are not new, but the process of negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU presents yet more challenges.

The initiation of trade talks between the EU and the members of the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries has brought to center-stage Southern Africa's problems of multiple and overalapping memberships of different regional organisations. Whereas many would argue that the EU should stand back and let the region try to solve its own regional integration problems before it engages, as a region, with external partners, others feel that the EPA process is breathing new life into the search for solutions to Southern Africa's regional integration conundrum.