The EU-CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA): Background, Perspective, and Implications for the Caribbean Region

For more than four decades the EU granted ACP states preferential access to its domestic markets. The recently concluded Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) will put an end to the EU?s long-standing system of Lomé preferences by progressively removing barriers to trade between the signatory parties. In her book the author Nuschin Ghahremani raises the question whether the EU-CARIFORUM EPA represents a new form of political and economic cooperation between the EU and the Caribbean region or if it is just another manifestion of the old asymmetrical Lomé practices. In order to adress this issue the author illuminates the reasons why EPAs have come to replace the non-reciprocal Lomé preferences. Further the implications of the EPA provisions for the economic development as well as the integration process of the Caribbean region will be analysed. Particular efforts were employed to build a bridge between the broader theoretical framework, and the technical details of the Agreement. The book will appeal to anyone interested in gaining a deeper insight into the mechanisms of international trade and the EU-CARIFORUM relations in particular.