The Frustrations of Free Trade and the Africa–European Union Samoa Agreement

Abstract

The Samoa Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) includes strict language on concluding controversial Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between their members. Skeptical OACPS members have instead called for greater intra-African economic integration embodied in the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). However, there are concerns that the EU aims to use the AfCFTA as a stepping-stone for a vast bicontinental free trade zone. Building upon elite interviews with African diplomatic officials, this article questions whether the pan-Africanism at the heart of the AfCFTA is compatible with the more integrative Eurafrican agenda embodied in the Samoa Agreement.

Introduction

In 2019, the African Union (AU) launched the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to establish pan-African economies of scale on a free trade footing. Through economic integration, this initiative aims to promote prosperity through the diversification of industries, the opening of new markets, and the intensification of production within regional value chains (Barnes et al., 2021). The AfCFTA, in this vein, aims to strengthen the African countries’ collective position within the global economy (African Union, 2021a). Economic integration via the AfCFTA is also seen as a stepping-stone toward greater political solidarity (Amanor-Wilkes, 2021).

Concerns have been raised, however, about how the AfCFTA will fit with existing external trade deals (Akopari, 2021; Oloruntoba, 2024; Sylla, 2019; Tay, 2023). There are fears that some African states’ acquiescence to the European Union’s (EU) Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will mean that cheap imported goods from Europe will unfairly circulate within non-EPA signatories via liberalized AfCFTA markets (Akopari, 2021). This will occur upon the lowering of intracontinental trade barriers unless stringent rules of origin are applied (Sylla, 2019). The implications of EPA free trade deals for the AfCFTA are further complicated by fragmentation within African Regional Economic Communities (RECs). For instance, in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) individual members such as Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have implemented unilateral EPAs under pressure from the European Union, while Nigeria has stalled its implementation for fear of the consequences of imports flooding upon local industries (Ogbodo, 2021).

Adding to concerns about the compatibility of the AfCFTA and the EPAs, the European Commission (2018, p. 8; 2023) has signaled its intention to utilize the pan-African initiative as a means toward an AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone (Chadwick, 2018). Capitalizing upon the removal of barriers between African countries, EU officials view the AfCFTA as an opportunity to fulfill “Eurafrican” ambitions to realize the “interdependence” of the “sister” continents (Hansen & Jonsson, 2014; Langan & Price, 2020). Meanwhile, the new Samoa Agreement signed between the EU and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) in November 2023 includes strict language on the need for the “full” and “concrete” implementation and “broadening” of EPAs (European Commission, 2021, p. 39). The text of the treaty also states that “the implementation of the EPAs, the African Continental Free Trade Area and other applicable trading arrangements, should be complementary and mutually supportive” (European Commission, 2021, p. 81). The Samoa Agreement further alludes to a future AU–EU bicontinental trade deal through a pledge to “discuss other applicable trading arrangements” beyond EPAs (European Commission, 2021). The envisaged AU–EU free trade area would unite the EU’s EPAs with the RECs in Africa south of the Sahara and integrate Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements in North Africa (Langan & Price, 2020). The result would be a vast free trade zone spanning from Finland to South Africa.

In this context, there have been accusations from African civil society that the EU is attempting to “hijack” the AfCFTA and nullify its pan-African logic (Sylla, 2019). These fears are heightened by the EU’s open statements about its “geopolitical” endeavor to secure critical resources from Africa (Carmody, 2011; Haroche, 2023). Related to this, there are historical fears that European officials’ Eurafrican discourse about the ostensible inevitable economic “interdependence” between “twin” and “sister” continents belies a neocolonial vision of European dominance (see Hansen & Jonsson, 2014; Martin, 1982, on the history of “Eurafrica”).

Building upon 13 semi-structured interviews with senior embassy officials representing nine African countries from across East, West, Southern and Central African regions, this article argues that Europe’s endeavor for a bicontinental AU–EU free trade area sits uncomfortably with the logic of the AU’s pan-African integration project. Based on interviews with Ambassadors, Charge d’affaires, and Political Counsellors, it highlights senior officials’ misgivings toward the EU’s EPA agenda as enshrined in the Samoa Agreement. Furthermore, Europe’s more recent goal to unify EPAs within a wider AU–EU free trade zone is seen by the interviewees as a potential threat to African prosperity. Namely, the AU’s pan-Africanist vision of economic diversification and prosperity—and greater political solidarity among African states—is seen to be at odds with the EU’s subversion of the AfCFTA for a premature Eurafrican free trade zone.

Thirteen interviews were conducted in total. Access was gained via letters of introduction that led to invitations to the embassies. Eleven interviews were conducted in Brussels from November 2023 to April 2024. One interview was conducted in London in November 2023. Another in New York in May 2023. Anonymity was granted due to inherent political sensitivities involved in a discussion surrounding the impact of European free trade (and aid) policies in Africa. This allowed interviewees to speak freely without fear of repercussions from EU donors, or from their capitals. For this reason, only the month of the interview is given to avoid potential identification. The interviews were semi-structured and addressed the Africa–EU relationship in the context of the new Samoa Agreement signed in November 2023 between the EU and OACPS countries. ¹ As highlighted above, the Samoa Agreement contains robust language about the need to complete—and extend—the EPA free trade agenda, which precipitated interview questions about the links between these deals and “development” aspirations embedded in the treaty (European Parliament, 2021).

As part of this engagement, the article aligns itself with the decolonial critique of Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) regarding global coloniality. This is married to the insights of Nkrumah (1965) on neocolonialism. Adopting a decolonial position, this article argues that pan-African initiatives such as the AfCFTA may result in severe disappointment for “development” if African officials do not act upon their existing misgivings toward EU’s free trade agendas. Following Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s warnings, African officials should guard against three forms of “coloniality” exercised by EU officials.

Coloniality itself is understood here as a system of Euro-American domination over Africa underpinned by (neo)colonial epistemologies and material structures. Namely, African officials should guard against Europe’s strategic manipulations of the AfCFTA in terms of the coloniality of power, the coloniality of knowledge and the coloniality of being (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). By contesting Europe’s exertion of its economic weight, its “development” discourse, and its racialized engagement with non-European actors, African officials should act to effectively safeguard the AfCFTA against neocolonial predations.

The discussion of this topic is structured as follows. The first section points to the utility of Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) and Nkrumah’s (1965) analysis of the threat posed to pan-African projects by Euro-American elites. The second section examines the EU’s pursuit of EPA free trade deals in Africa. Building on interviews with African embassy officials, it makes clear their existing misgivings about the impact of EPAs for “development.” The third section lays out the pan-African logic of the AfCFTA. Engaging the embassy interviews, it makes clear African officials’ optimism regarding pan-African integration, and their fears about the likely consequences of a bicontinental free trade zone. Finally, the article considers the agency of African officials to defend the pan-Africanism at the heart of the AfCFTA.

Global Coloniality and Neocolonialism Within Africa–EU Relations

The European project’s relationship with African former colonies has been at the center of controversy since the beginning of association between the European Economic Community (EEC) and African colonies under the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (Brown, 2001; Hurt, 2003). Scholars have highlighted the “neocolonial” or “imperial” contours of European trade and aid agendas in the continent (see, for example, Del Sarto, 2016; Langan, 2018; Langan & Price, 2020; Nicolaïdis, 2015; Orbie, 2021; Pasture, 2018; Thorpe, 2018; Zielonka, 2006). This scholarly critique builds upon the earlier insights of African anticolonial leaders including Kwame Nkrumah (1965) and Sekou Touré (1962) who warned against the EEC’s resort to collective colonialism predicated upon the principle of premature free trade between the blocs, as became enshrined in the Yaoundé Conventions (1963–1975; see Van der Lee [1967]). Touré (1962, p. 149) warned that the “unconditional integration” of African and European markets would be the association of the “rider” and the “horse.” He argued that it would foreclose the possibility of African industrialization “in advance” since the absence of tariff barriers would lead to the collapse of nascent African enterprise amid an influx of cheap European produce.

Nkrumah (1965) meanwhile warned about the EEC’s recourse to a neocolonialism in which aid monies, corporate dominance, and military interventions would be used to sway African officials. Nkrumah (1965) warned that the recently won juridical independence of African countries would not be complemented by true empirical sovereignty if the EEC was able to use its aid largesse and corporate/military weight to corrupt and subdue African leaderships, and to continue to extract raw materials. Instead, African polities would be kept in a subordinate, neocolonial system of political subservience within unequal free trade structures. In this context, Nkrumah (1965) warned of the immediate need for pan-African initiatives to guard against the predations of Europe (and the United States). He argued that this could principally be achieved through the formation of a federal Union of African States. With the creation of a federal executive able to unite disparate African countries, a new Union government would obtain the necessary economies of scale to achieve diversification away from dependence upon Euro-American aid and political patronage (Nkrumah, 1965).

As Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) observes, however, Nkrumah’s vision of immediate political federation was not shared by all African officials. What he (2015, p. 47) terms the “Kwame Nkrumah-Julius Nyerere curse” arose in which pan-Africanism became divided between two opposite camps. First, a camp pursuing immediate political and economic unity, as favored by Nkrumah. Second, a gradualist camp pursued a looser confederal association of African sovereign states, as favored by Tanzanian President Nyerere (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). Nkrumah (cited in Obeng, 1979, p. 210) accused President Charles de Gaulle of France of deliberately engineering this division, which soon expressed itself in terms of a geopolitical distinction between the Casablanca Group of States, a coalition of radical leaders led by Nkrumah, and the Monrovia Group of States, led by Nyerere (Williams, 1961).

As a result, Nkrumah’s ambition for a Union of African States was left unfulfilled and African countries remained vulnerable to neocolonial manipulations during the Cold War. Nkrumah himself was ousted from office in 1966 through a military coup supported by Washington and London (Mwakikagile, 2015, p. 11; Williams, 2022). Nyerere maintained office until the 1980s and lamented his earlier failure to recognize the true extent of neocolonial machinations as had correctly been laid out by Nkrumah (Lewis, 1990).

Given the uneven history of pan-African integration, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015) warns that African officials today must remain alert to the dangers of neocolonialism and, more broadly, to what he describes as global coloniality. Drawing upon decolonial scholarship, especially from Mignolo (2000), Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015, p. 6) explains that the end of formal colonialism did not put an end to global power hierarchies in which the African peoples continue to be oppressed by their Euro-American counterparts. He argues that a modern system of “global coloniality” survives the false decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s. A system of Euro-American dominance persists in which neocolonial material and ideational structures frustrate African societies’ attempts to extricate themselves from dependency upon the “West.”

As mentioned, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015, p. 28) points to three aspects of coloniality in terms of how Euro-American elites maintain Africa in this subordinate position. First, he points to the coloniality of power in which Euro-American elites exercise hegemonic influence over African officials. The former utilize economic advantages, aid, military resources and racialized knowledge systems derived from the colonial era to cajole African leaders into acquiescence to external demands (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, p. 31). He highlights here how “colonial mentalities, psychologies and world views” prevail despite the formal end of colonialism (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, p. 31). Second, Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015, p. 33) explains that the ‘coloniality of knowledge’ perpetuates inequalities between Africa and Europe. He states that this “denotes a complex process of deployment of global imperial technologies of subjectivation taking the form of translating and rewriting other cultures, other knowledges, and other ways of being, and presumably commensurability through Western rationality” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, p. 33). Third, he (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, p. 34) articulates his concerns about the ‘coloniality of being’. This refers to how Euro-American elites perpetuate worldviews in which African peoples are deemed as a racialized “Other.” In this sense, their scope for independent agency is curtailed as their very humanity is questioned by the “West” (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015, p. 34).

Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) warnings are highly relevant here for African officials’ defense and successful cultivation of the pan-African logic of the AfCFTA. An assessment of the EU’s interception of the AfCFTA may usefully examine the “coloniality of power” (particularly Europe’s strategic use of aid monies), the “coloniality of knowledge” (particularly European discourses of “win-win” free trade) and the “coloniality of being” (in which EU politicians—especially from the populist right—present African migrants as a dangerous “Other” who must be anchored to their origin countries via stay-at-home-development and trade deals). Nkrumah’s (1965) writings also contain key tools for thinking about how to reorientate the AfCFTA toward more inclusive forms of economic growth in Africa. Nkrumah’s calls for pan-African economies of scale are the intellectual foundations of the AfCFTA. A conceptual toolkit, derived from Nkrumah and Ndlovu-Gatsheni, also provides light on the EU’s existing EPA agenda in Africa. This is explored in the next section and combined to an assessment of the African embassy interviewees’ concerns surrounding EPA free trade deals.

Global Coloniality and Europe’s Pursuit of EPA Deals in Africa

The EU has vigorously pursued free trade deals in its relations with African states. Its pursuit of EPAs was set into motion by the European Commission’s (1996) Green Paper on the Future of EU Relations with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Countries. The publication articulated Europe’s commitment to “reciprocal” free trade as the route to successful socioeconomic development for former colonies via their “integration” into competitive global markets. This was reiterated in the ACP–EU Cotonou Agreement (2000–2023), which cemented the shift away from non-reciprocal trade agreements under the preceding ACP–EU Lomé Conventions (1975–2000) (Farrell, 2005; Nunn & Price, 2004). As noted, the new Samoa Agreement signed in November 2023 now includes stringent language on the need for the “concrete” and “full” completion and “broadening” of EPAs (European Commission, 2021, p. 39).

The EU’s commitment to trade reciprocity rests upon its discursive claims surrounding the role of free trade in stimulating private sector activity and “development,” while disciplining sectors that cannot withstand the pressures of global competition (Langan & Price, 2020). This has been hailed by EU officials as the basis for “win-win” trade between Europe and former colonies in terms of their ostensible “comparative advantages” (European Commission, 2005). EU aid provision has also been orientated toward discursively justifying—and incentivizing—trade liberalization in Africa as being “pro-poor” in the timeframe of the ACP–EU Cotonou Agreement (2000–2023), principally through aid for trade mechanisms (Holden, 2014; Langan & Scott, 2011; Richardson-Ngwenya & Richardson, 2014).

Underscoring African officials’ agency, however, Europe’s path toward achieving EPAs has been unsteady. While the Cotonou Agreement set out a road map to establish EPAs with RECs by December 2007, nevertheless, by the beginning of the negotiations for the Post-Cotonou (Samoa) Agreement in 2016 this goal had still not been achieved (Cheong & Kim, 2022). In fact, the Caribbean grouping was the only macroregion among the ACP bloc to fully ratify and implement an EPA. Within Africa, a full regional EPA was only in provisional effect in Southern Africa, pending ratification by all EU member states (European Commission, 2024). EU EPAs with other African RECs remain stalled. For example, in West Africa, the refusal of Nigeria to ratify a regional ECOWAS deal meant that the EU had to instead sign EPAs with individual REC members including Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire (European Commission, 2024). A similar situation exists in the East African Community where Kenya has acquiesced to an individual EPA, while Uganda and Tanzania (as least developed countries) refuse to sign a regional deal. They instead maintain Duty-Free and Quota-Free access to Europe under the alternative “Everything But Arms” (EBA) scheme (European Commission, 2024).

The EU’s failure to fully achieve its EPA agenda reflects deep concerns among African officials and civil society about the impact of premature free trade on nascent industries and agricultural sectors (see, for example, Trommer, 2011). ² These misgivings were fully apparent within the semi-structured interviews conducted in nine African embassies from May 2023 to April 2024. The African official interviewees repeatedly expressed views that the EPA agenda posed challenges to import-competing sectors, while offering few advantages to export industries hampered by EU non-tariff barriers (NTBs). One official explained that EU agricultural subsidies made their African counterparts uncompetitive. The official also highlighted hypocrisies surrounding EU production and climate targets:

the EPAs turned out to be a mistake. All countries are in agreement about the issues we have raised. The EU gives subsidies. We buy chicken, onions and [other] agriculture from Europe. Africa has 60% arable land. European goods are polluting the [environmental] space, but they are talking about sustainable development? The Netherlands has 50% of the emissions of the entire African continent. That’s why they are growing food during winter [in greenhouses]. If you talk about sustainability, then you should have a [real] partnership where we supply the food. It’s how God intended. We could export more. (African embassy official, interview A, Brussels November 2023)

Another senior embassy official corroborated this starkly negative view of EU EPAs. The interviewee emphasized how NTBs ensured that African exporters could not meaningfully take advantage of low-tariff access to European consumers under EPAs. The official condemned this as a form of hidden protectionism:

they [the EU] are giving us free access [to EU markets under EPAs] but we are denied through different means… phytosanitary conditions…. Each day there is this or that [regulation]… Palm oil was banned because they found some chemical. They banned for a long period. Then we have to talk to them, talk to the farmers. …increasingly they are the ones failing the standards and we are always trying to catch up [with EU rules]. (African embassy official, interview B, Brussels, November 2023)

These criticisms of the “development” limitations of EPAs were corroborated by another African diplomat who expressed concerns about new EU regulations on imports linked to deforestation in partner countries:

there is a contradiction… [the EU says] “you can join our market without paying tariff, but there are some other non-tariff barriers.” Then they [EU officials] tell you the package does not conform to the European standard… Now they tell us to stop cutting trees [deforestation]… There are ways to improve yourself [private sector production techniques], fine, but it is unfair. African countries need market access. (African embassy official, interview C, Brussels, April 2024)

Concerns about the EU’s new deforestation regulations—in combination with the European Commission’s new Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)—for undermining African exporters were reinforced by a separate embassy official:

with the EU’s newly adopted regulations on deforestation and carbon –CBAM - you realise that the playing field is no longer level [in the trade relationship]…. They [Europeans] are shutting the door behind them [on attaining economic development]…. Deforestation now attracts a levy, but we are in the developing phase. They are developed and yet they are raising the bar? What does that do to [African exporters’] trade?!’ (African embassy official, interview D, Brussels, April 2024)

Europe’s imposition of NTBs was viewed as an impediment not only to the effective functioning of EPAs but also to the realization of a genuine political “partnership.” One diplomat expected the EU to do more to assist African private sector actors cope with its ever-stringent regulations in order to live up to its “partnership” rhetoric:

the EU regulations are unilateral pronouncements… There should be a partnership to promote their [African exporters’] market… there should be a partnership with people…since you have EPAs and you call for market access [to African economies]. (African embassy official, interview E, Brussels, January 2024)

Another official regretted that the new Samoa Agreement signed between the EU and the OACPS in November 2023 (as a replacement to Cotonou) maintained a strong commitment to the implementation of EPAs. The inclusion of robust language on EPAs in the Samoa Agreement was viewed as a negative aspect of the new partnership deal. Linkages between job losses under EPA import flooding and African migration to Europe were also highlighted by this official:

I am not optimistic about our cooperation. Notice that [on] trade, for example, the Economic Partnership Agreements are maintained in Samoa… these have been criticised by civil society in Africa… we want to industrialise our country… we cannot always send raw materials [to Europe]… we have to transform our material… this is the way to wealth. This is the issue that I want to express… Our farmers don’t have capacity to feed our population… because our farmers are focused on producing exportation [for Europe]…This is also a problem of migration… but this is a dialogue of the deaf [with Europe]… 40% of young people want to move [to Europe] because the economy of our countries follow the raw materials. (African embassy official, interview F, Brussels, January 2024)

The link between economic stagnation under EU EPAs and intercontinental migration flows was raised in a semi-structured interview with a separate African official. In this case, negative implications of import-flooding under EPAs were contrasted with the perceived lack of appropriate EU aid support toward private sector capacity building for African partners:

the European product comes to African markets…. [Our] people feel the European countries export to the country and make them lose jobs. Then they feel the need to come to Europe and to find jobs here. We should promote human rights and a partnership for trade between Europe and African countries and keep people working… European aid is not enough compared to the loss. (African embassy official, interview C, Brussels, April 2024)

In such terms, African embassy interviewees expressed views that EPA trade liberalization would perpetuate asymmetrical economic ties by hampering industrialization and economic diversification. While European markets might provide low-tariff access to African agricultural exports under EPAs, this access was understood to be nullified in practice by Europe’s imposition of NTBs. Meanwhile, European producers’ unfettered access to African markets risked import flooding and the decimation of emerging import-competing markets and producers. In similar terms as those expressed by the officials during the interviews, these fears of lopsided EPA arrangements were memorably articulated by the outgoing Nigerian President Buhari, in advance of the 2022 Africa-EU Summit:

Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) give Europe deeper access to African markets. At the lower end of the value chain, these free-trade deals ensure EU agricultural subsidies deliver another blow to African farmers, as artificially depreciated produce floods the market, undermining domestic competitors. (Buhari, 2022)

A recent quantitative analysis of the impact of those EPA deals already in effect in the continent, meanwhile, bears out African officials’ fears in stark empirical terms (see Stender et al., 2021). Worryingly, the EPA process has also undermined existing regional organizations. This was seen, for example, in West Africa where certain members of ECOWAS, such as Nigeria, were reluctant to conclude a region-wide EPA. This resulted in break-away positions—with Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire negotiating unilateral interim EPAs—which now undermine the ECOWAS common external tariff (Woolfrey, 2021).

Perhaps most concerningly, the European Commission has drawn upon—and cultivated—the modern system of global coloniality in pursuit of EPAs (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2015). In terms of the coloniality of power, Europe has leveraged trade and aid dependencies to successfully cajole several African countries toward acquiescence. Through mechanisms such as the EPA Development Programme and bilateral budget support arrangements, Europe has offered an aid “carrot” for EPA deals, while wielding a “stick” in terms of its threats to downgrade noncompliant African countries to the less generous Generalized Scheme of Preferences (Langan & Price, 2015). This has left smaller economies such as Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire (that do not quality as least developing countries and cannot access EBA) with little alternative but to acquiesce to EPAs. Europe’s strategic blend of aid promises and trade threats can be understood here in terms of the coloniality of power. Europe’s cultivation of such power corroborates Nkrumah’s (1965) early fears about the EEC’s resort to a collective colonialism in which aid would be offered to compliant states and disadvantageous tariffs levied against noncompliant countries within a skewed Eurafrican economic relationship.

In terms of the coloniality of knowledge, meanwhile, Europe has also cultivated this key aspect of global coloniality in its pursuit of EPAs. Namely, European elites have strategically articulated Post Washington Consensus (PWC) narratives in alignment with key Euro-American institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization with regard to the efficacy of “win-win” North–South free trade. These strategic discourses revolve around the principle of comparative advantages and the compatibility of market opening with sustainable development (Önis¸ & S¸enses, 2005). In this sense, European elites have cultivated a hegemonic discourse in which African officials’ current “commonsense” acceptance of free trade norms has been pursued (Sylla, 2019).

Europe’s cultivation of this PWC discourse has also firmly relied upon colonial legacies and imaginaries. Recently, for example, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, drew vividly upon Eurafrican imaginaries of Africa and Europe as “sister continents” in her endorsement of the principle of free trade between the EU and the AU (Didli, 2020). This echoed the language of her predecessor, Jean-Claude Juncker, whose final State of the Union address in 2018 painted a(neo)colonial vision of a codependent economic relationship between the “twin” continents in no uncertain terms:

To speak of the future, one must speak of Africa – Europe’s twin continent… We need to invest more in our relationship with the nations of this great and noble continent. And we have to stop seeing this relationship through the sole prism of development aid. Such an approach is beyond inadequate, humiliatingly so…. We want to create a framework that brings more private investment to Africa… But this is not enough. I believe we should develop the numerous European-African trade agreements into a conti-nent-to-continent free trade agreement, as an economic partnership between equals. (European Commission, 2018, emphasis added)

Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) third concept of the “coloniality of being” further provides useful insight into how EU politicians have pursued EPAs. Namely, they have used racialized language to depict free trade deals as a means of stopping “dangerous” young African men from entering European member states. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France memorably endorsed the concept of “Eurafrica” while warning of the demographic challenges posed by Africa to Europe in terms of population growth (cited in Ankomah, 2007). Sarkozy laid out his Eurafrican vision for a unity of the continents based on codevelopment (and codependence):

you want another type of globalisation, with more humanity, more justice and more rules. So does France… If you choose democracy, liberty, justice and law, then France is ready to join you … what France wants with Africa is co-development, shared development…. What France wants with Africa is to prepare the advent of ‘Eurafrica’, a great common destiny which awaits Europe and Africa. (cited in Flynn, 2007)

More recently, EU Commissioner Josep Borrell called upon European “gardeners” to ensure that poverty in non-European “jungles” did not encroach upon the EU in terms of migration. Such language has been used to justify “development” initiatives that incentivize young men to stay in their countries of origin (Bishara, 2022). Indeed, these racialized migration narratives have been used to promote EPAs on European officials’ (highly problematic) assumption that these trade deals create jobs in African countries by stimulating export industries (ignoring the hampering of exporters under European NTBs amid the collapse of import-competing sectors). Borrell’s racialized “garden threatened by jungle” worldview underscores Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) argument about how Euro-American elites cultivate the coloniality of being to disempower and dehumanize African peoples, and to justify interventions in their affairs.

Through the combination of the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being, European officials have pursued EPA free trade deals while rhetorically positioning themselves as benevolent contributors to development in Africa (Storey, 2006). Nevertheless, African officials have already demonstrated their agency to resist, by partially rejecting the imposition of EPAs (notably in the Nigerian case—see Janet et al., 2024) for more on Nigeria–EU trade ties). European officials despite these setbacks—or perhaps because of them—now envisage the AfCFTA as a vital stepping-stone toward uniting the disparate EPA agenda by establishing an AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone. As the next section illustrates, however, African officials while optimistic about the pan-African logic of the AfCFTA are skeptical as to the benefits of an AU–EU free trade zone for “development.”

The EU’s Interception of the AfCFTA and Prospects for a Eurafrican Free Trade Zone

Through the cultivation of the coloniality of power, knowledge, and being, the EU has pursued its EPA free trade agenda in Africa. As noted above, however, African officials’ and civil society concerns have led to a frustrated trade mandate. The renegotiation of the ACP–EU relationship upon the close of the Cotonou Agreement (2000–2023), however, provided EU officials with an opportunity to overcome these difficulties. This was especially the case since the negotiations coincided with the creation of the AfCFTA. The AfCFTA was established at the AU’s Kigali Summit in 2018, launched in Niamey in 2019, and operationalized in January 2021 (AU, 2023). The initiative has the foundational aim to build pan-African economies of scale by removing tariff and NTBs covering Trade in Goods and Services, Investment, Intellectual Property Rights, and Competition Policy between its AU participants (AU, 2023). Its remit is extensive and comprises the member states of the AU and eight AU-recognized RECs (AU, 2021, p. 34). As of July 2024, 54 states have signed the agreement, while 47 of these signatories have fully ratified the free trade area (AU, 2023; TRALAC, 2024).

Through the creation of the AfCFTA, AU officials have embraced a free trade logic, at least in terms of intracontinental integration (Sylla, 2019). Namely, the AfCFTA aims to create a single continental market through progressive liberalization, targeting the elimination of 90% of tariffs on goods within five to ten years (AU, 2021b, p. 17). This market would encompass more than one billion people and address the relatively low levels of intracontinental trade (at 20% in comparison to Europe at 68% and Asia at 59%) (AU, 2021b, p. 117). The AU (2021b) hopes that the AfCFTA will expand the domestic productive capacity of African states and diversify local and export production. This is, however, not without associated costs—not least the potential loss of USD4.1 billion in tariff revenues for national governments and the pressures of sectoral competition as the economies integrate (AU, 2021b, p. 117). Indeed, there are fears that the dismantling of tariff barriers between African countries at divergent levels of “development” might augur benefits for regional hegemons such as South Africa—while damaging nascent industry in less developed countries such as Uganda (Akopari, 2021). The optimistic view is that any short-term costs will be offset by longer-term gains vis-à-vis employment, production, and economic growth.

While the AfCFTA may result in this short-term economic turbulence for AU members, the creation of the initiative has provided EU actors with an immediate vehicle for the realization of a bicontinental free trade zone with its “twin” and “sister” continent. As noted, the European Commission (2018a) signaled that the AfCFTA will become the bedrock of an AU–EU free trade zone. By removing barriers to trade between themselves, African countries will, according to the European Commission (2018a), ready themselves for a comprehensive agreement with Europe where goods flow freely between both continents. Furthermore, the new Samoa Agreement states that the AfCFTA is compatible with EPAs—and alludes to a future AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone (European Commission, 2021, p. 39). Civil society skeptics fear that this raises the prospect of the EU’s strategically intercepting the AfCFTA for the economic benefit of European member states (Sylla, 2019).

Given African officials’ existing concerns about EPA free trade deals, however, the EU’s ambitions for the AU–EU free trade zone will likely be contested at the diplomatic level. Indeed, the semi-structured interviews with African officials from May 2023 to April 2024 confirmed the likelihood of such diplomatic resistance. The interviewees regularly expressed their hopes for the pan-African integration enabled by the AfCFTA but remained skeptical of EU proposals for a bicontinental free trade zone. Indeed, senior embassy officials regularly expressed the importance of the AU’s initiative for strengthening the economic bonds between African states themselves. One diplomat expressed hopes that the AfCFTA would enable African countries to “stay in control” of economic globalization:

With AfCFTA, there is ambition, we are looking to have integration of our economies… This is how Africa will grow… how we can sustain ourselves, to stay in control [within the global economy]… To achieve that impact [we must deal with] technical barriers, non-tariff barriers in the RECs. (African embassy official, interview G, Brussels, April 2024)

This theme of “control” was expressed in another interview in November 2023. An embassy official explained that the AfCFTA would enable collective self-reliance while bolstering economic growth and development:

the AfCFTA is critical…. Instead of looking out there [to other global trade partners], we can look within ourselves and consume what we produce. Why should we import flowers from other countries when we have Uganda and Rwanda? And palm oil – why export to the EU? Why not look within? … Now we have the Pan African Payment Platform, a CEPA equivalent … we should boost intra African trade and then regions like the EU will have to rethink their restrictive [NTB] measures. (African embassy official, interview B, Brussels, November 2023)

In similar terms, a separate official expressed the hope that the AfCFTA would enable African governments to “ignore” artificially imposed colonial borders in order to enhance intracontinental networks. Africa’s economic position was compared here to India and the United States of America (USA) in terms of the inherent opportunities presented by vast economies of scale to effectively compete in globalized markets:

if we ignore the borders then Africa won’t need or want stuff [from outside], or have the problems we are going through…. Kenya and Ethiopia have no FOREX but the trade between them is so vibrant…. [they] don’t notice the border …. We are like India… in India not all the states [get along politically], the states keep fighting, but they succeed… [the border between African states] should be like between Minnesota and Idaho [in the USA]. (African embassy official, interview A, Brussels, November 2023)

The importance of consolidating regional integration within the African RECs—as a path toward greater continental integration via the AfCFTA—was also expressed. For example, one official explained that consolidating trade within the Southern African Development Community would be conducive to the AfCFTA’s wider success—and to bolstering collective competitiveness in the global economy:

[EPA] market access has not increased….export revenue… to diversify our export base we need Southern Africa, Namibia, E-Swatini, South Africa…. We have regional issues to deal with to improve our trade outside. (African embassy official, interview G, Brussels, November 2023)

Embassy officials’ optimism regarding the AfCFTA was, however, couched in terms of recognition of the need for infrastructural upgrading and investment within Africa. One official expressed the view that the EU’s new Global Gateway initiative might play a positive role in stimulating the AfCFTA via infrastructural investments from the European Investment Bank and other “Team Europe” partners. The interviewee also expressed their view that the EU was an enthusiastic proponent of the AfCFTA itself:

With AfCFTA… we will build a common market… The AfCFTA is bringing the aim to integrate African markets… Most importantly, we need to build Africa’s infrastructure at the regional level, which is what we are trying to do. And Global Gateway is working in that framework. … The EU also benefits from investing in African integration in terms of trade. The EU are really supportive of the AfCFTA. (African embassy official, interview H, Brussels, November 2023)

However, while welcoming of EU investments in key infrastructure projects, embassy officials regularly expressed the view that the premature creation of an AU–EU free trade zone would likely nullify the pan-African logic of intracontinental economic integration and sectoral diversification. With parallels to the “control” narrative above, one diplomat explained that the AU’s initiative was aimed at enhancing the collective “autonomy” of African states. Any agreement with an external trade partner must therefore not “breach” that fundamental principle of autonomy:

the development of AfCFTA is a process of becoming autonomous. Partnerships have to be helpful in that process not to be a breach of that [objective]. (African embassy official, interview G, January 2024)

This view was corroborated by a separate official who stated that African countries should not “rush into” a bicontinental free trade area with Europe:

What we are doing with AfCFTA is that we want more in intraregional trade… we want internal [trade] to work properly, we want to boost regional trade. So we don’t rush into these kinds of frameworks, trade frameworks with the EU. With the EU it took several decades [to build the internal market]. We have got to take our time… (African embassy official, interview B, Brussels, November 2023)

This same official explained that the AfCFTA represented a vindication of President Kwame Nkrumah’s anticolonial vision of pan-Africanism. The official regretted that—through deals such as EPAs—that African states had been “played” by external partners such as the EU:

the AfCFTA is a very clear example of that, a common trade policy… Nkrumah advocated for this… it’s a shame we allowed ourselves to be played all these decades… How can an individual country negotiate with the EU…. [the EPA is] a horrible agreement. Did we really protect our interests? (African embassy official, interview B, Brussels, November 2023)

Another senior official expressed the view that the EU was hostile toward the AfCFTA’s ambition of fostering African states’ collective self-reliance. As a result, Europeans would insist upon a premature AU–EU free trade zone as a means of diluting the pan-African project:

Europe, they don’t like it [the AfCFTA]. They favored the AU–EU [trade] relationship. The AfCFTA is not accepted by the EU. (African embassy official, interview A, Brussels, November 2023)

In such terms, African officials interviewed from May 2023 to April 2024 regularly raised concerns about EU free trade agendas and the prospect of an AU–EU free trade zone.

However, it is important to note that amid African officials’ skepticism toward EU free trade agendas, the creation of a bicontinental free trade zone between Europe and Africa is far from assured. African officials retain agency to resist this prospect. In addition, several serious technical and political barriers already exist that may forestall the EU’s ambitions.

First, an AU–EU free trade zone would require the creation of an African continental customs union (Woolfrey, 2021, p. 1). However, only four African RECs have fully functioning free trade areas. Second, there is widespread divergence in trade policies amongst African states. Some states such as Nigeria maintain more protectionist stances while others such as Ghana abide more by free trade precepts (Johnson, 2011; Woolfrey, 2021, p. 2). A third barrier is that there are a range of contending positions among African countries in relation to trade with the EU. For example, the EU’s EBA agreement provides DFQF access to least-developed countries such as Uganda. However, middle-income states such as Kenya must sign EPAs to qualify for low-tariff access. Fourth, an AU–EU FTA would require a mandate for the AU to represent its members in trade negotiations. Nevertheless, as was seen in negotiations for the Samoa Agreement, attempts by the AU to accrue greater policy competency can be resisted by African states (Carbone, 2018; Woolfrey, 2021, p. 4). The above challenges underscore that there are already clear avenues open to African officials to frustrate EU free trade proposals.

Adding greater impetus to future diplomatic contestations of the EU’s free trade agenda, African officials also pointed to the revised OACPS Georgetown Agreement as a source of strength for diversification away from the partnership with the EU. Namely, the revised treaty expanded the remit of the OACPS Secretariat to sign partnership agreements with parties other than the EU. One interviewee explained that the cooperation agreement with Europe under the Samoa deal represented only but one avenue for African internationalism:

Africa and African states, we are open to all partners. India, Turkey, USA. This also includes international cooperation with European powers. (African embassy official, interview I, London, November 2023)

Another official corroborated this sense of optimism about the future of the OACPS as an alliance of ACP nations able to bolster their collective presence on the global stage:

we have to work also with the UN, other international organisations, and transform the OACPS and be a key player on the international scene. We have the revised Georgetown Agreement to empower the Secretariat. (African embassy official, interview H, Brussels, November 2023)

However, despite optimism regarding the OACPS’ revised mandate, there is a danger that the OACPS Secretariat falls foul to political co-optation vis-à-vis the EU’s cultivation of global coloniality. Namely, the OACPS Secretariat remains heavily dependent on EU aid monies for its day-to-day operational funding. This financial dependency is deepened by the recent withdrawal of South Africa from the OACPS, which had been the largest member state contributor. It is also exacerbated by the failure of large certain members (such as Nigeria) to fulfill their total financial obligations to the organization. This is especially problematic since organizational fees are proportionate to the size of OACPS members’ domestic economies (African embassy official, interview D, Brussels, April 2024). Even the renovations of the headquarters of the OACPS Secretariat in Brussels had to be financed by the European Commission, to the amount of €4 million, much to the chagrin of EU transparency activists who lament the apparent lack of openness surrounding this expenditure (Chadwick, 2024).

Related to this, there is also the danger that the AU itself falls foul to EU pressures regarding an AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone. This is despite the skepticism toward EU free trade agendas that clearly exists at the embassy level of individual African governments explored during the interviews. This danger is heightened by the fact that AU officials—through the creation of the AfCFTA—have signaled their own ideological commitment to free trade. The AfCFTA as an initiative itself aligns with a free market vision of development in which open borders, private sector development, and the operation of “comparative advantages” will ostensibly lead to continental prosperity. The AU’s institutional endorsement of free trade principles means that while opportunities do exist for African officials (especially at the nation-state level) to contest EU trade liberalization agendas, the AU’s institutionalized free market ethos may lend itself to the establishment of an AU–EU agreement in the long run.

Tellingly here, the EU is referenced within AU policy communications as being an exemplar of successful macroregional integration based upon the philosophy of free trade and tariff liberalization:

The success of the European Union (EU)since the 1950s shows robust evidence to the potential benefits of regional integration. If properly conceived and implemented, regional integration offers numerous advantages to developing economies. Closer trade links among such economies have the potential of strengthening their capacity to participate in world trade. Countries can thus overcome obstacles caused by the relatively small size of the domestic markets, by offering producers opportunities to realize greater economies of scale and benefit from the establishment of regional infrastructure. (AU, 2021 p. 117)

When assessed within the framework of global coloniality provided by Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2015), AU officials’ own desire to emulate the EU’s free trade story is not surprising. AU officials’ policy stance underscores Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) argument that African elites within pan-African institutions such as the AU are routinely influenced by Euro-American counterparts in terms of the “coloniality of knowledge.” In this case, European officials’ construction of a “common sense” discourse of “win-win” free trade appears to have seeped into the development thinking of AU officials in Addis Ababa. This has been combined to the “coloniality of power” in which EU aid monies are routinely directed to the daily functioning of the AU as an institution, and to the AfCFTA project itself. Indeed, the AU derives two thirds of its funding from external partners, with the EU as the largest single contributor. The EU also provided €74 million to support the establishment of the AfCFTA via its pan-African Programme from 2014 to 2020, raising questions about its ongoing influence over the evolution and future direction of the initiative (Tay, 2023).

The ability of AU elites in Addis Ababa to resist EU demands for an AU–EU free trade zone therefore appears somewhat constrained in the longer term. This is especially so since in relation to the “coloniality of being,” EU support to the AfCFTA is framed in terms of limiting “dangerous” migration from Africa. The EU’s desire to yield influence over the AfCFTA is therefore rooted in its wider desire to “contain” African migration. Namely, Europe’s approach to job creation in Africa (via initiatives such as the AfCFTA) has become increasingly securitized and—through racialized discourses about migration from “the jungle”—implicated in both the “old” (biological) and “new” (cultural) racism highlighted by decolonial scholars (Grosfoguel, 2012). The three aspects of global coloniality continue to shape the contours of AU–EU cooperation in relation to the AfCFTA, and to disempower AU officials.

Skeptics of free trade deals in numerous African embassies in Brussels, London, and New York also face challenges in resisting the EU’s ambition for an AU–EU deal in terms of the EU’s direct diplomacy with—and aid promises to—senior politicians in their own national capitals. This is combined with EU “divide and rule” techniques among OACPS and AU member states. One interviewed official raised their concerns about these EU techniques in relation to its pursuit of the controversial Critical Raw Materials Act. These techniques have resonance for European officials’ separate push for a bicontinental AU–EU free trade zone:

Critical Raw Materials. It’s one of their policies… the unity in the [OACPS] Georgetown Agreement is then under attack, with side meetings [with EU officials] taking place in Nairobi, in Dar es Salaam, in Cameroon, in Kigali, in Senegal, and Ghana and Uganda… and then a carrot is dangled [i.e. aid monies]…We are trying for consensus as the OACPS, a common policy on Critical Raw Materials… but then the EU is already in your capital signing a bilateral agreement, the EU Delegation in your capital with the politicians… It is we here in Brussels who understand the intentions [of the EU] but signatures are already made in Kigali and Nairobi. That is unfortunately the name of the engagement. It is very divisive. The EU always lends a Euro to someone who has something to offer. (African embassy official, interview D, Brussels, April 2023)

Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) decolonial framework therefore provides stark warnings here for African officials who are concerned about EU free trade strategies. The EU in its pursuit of a free trade zone spanning the “sister” and “twin” continents has embarked on a neocolonial trade agenda, one which if fulfilled will exacerbate pressures upon producers already witnessed under EPAs (Stender et al., 2021). In large part owing to the experience of EU negotiations for EPAs, the African embassy interviewees broadly recognized the dangers of the proposed AU–EU free trade zone. In terms of resisting—finding alternatives to—this bicontinental proposal, the writings of Nkrumah (1965) also remain a useful resource for skeptical African officialdom to enhance their agency and autonomy. Nkrumah’s warnings about the premature integration of African and European economies within open markets remain highly prescient. And his positive calls for the pan-African pursuit of developmentalist strategies on a continental basis—as opposed to the AU’s current laissez-faire doctrines—bears relevance for African officials in how they might rework the AfCFTA to better deliver social prosperity for citizenries.

Conclusion

The EU has vigorously pursued EPAs in Africa during the lifetime of the Cotonou Agreement. The new OACPS–EU Samoa Agreement enshrines these EPAs and calls for their completion—and extension. It also alludes to a future AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone. Concerningly, EU officials have cultivated three aspects of global coloniality in their pursuit of this free trade agenda vis-à-vis the coloniality of power, the coloniality of knowledge, and the coloniality of being. Namely, they have cultivated an unequal and neocolonial power relationship with African counterparts in which the former are faced with aid as leverage, economic coercion, and a “development” discourse founded upon the “common sense” of free trade. Amid the negotiations for the Samoa Agreement, and the AU’s launch of the AfCFTA, the EU’s pursuit of free trade deals has now pivoted toward the strategic interception of this pan-African initiative. The European Commission has clearly signaled its intent to build an AU–EU bicontinental free trade zone, piggybacking upon the AfCFTA.

Interviews with African officials from May 2023 to April 2024, however, demonstrate that there remains much diplomatic skepticism toward—and agency to resist—the EU’s free trade agenda. The interviewed African diplomats expressed deep concerns about the ability of their exporters to benefit from free trade with Europe due to the latter’s imposition of stringent NTBs. They further lamented the consequences of import flooding of subsidized European products for their nascent agricultural and manufacturing sectors. In this context, Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s (2015) conceptual framework—and political warnings—bear much significance for African officialdom in their ongoing trade and aid relationship with the European Commission. Bearing in mind the EU’s historical exercise of the coloniality of power, knowledge and being will stand African negotiators in good stead in terms of devising counterstrategies to resist the “hijacking” of the AfCFTA (Sylla, 2019).

Moreover, by heeding the warnings of Nkrumah (1965) as to the need for developmentalist strategies when approaching intra-African economic development, African officials can work toward an internal reformulation of the AfCFTA away from laissez-faire doctrines and toward progressive outcomes for workers and local citizenries. The dangers of EU co-optation of the AU in Addis Ababa, the OACPS Secretariat in Brussels—as well as of national politicians—via aid dependency can also be kept at the forefront of critical African diplomatic strategies via engagement with decolonial scholarship.