The impact of Brexit, the regional EPA and interim EPAs of Ivory Coast and Ghana on Senegal and West Africa
SOL | 31 December 2016
The impact of Brexit, the regional EPA and interim EPAs of Ivory Coast and Ghana on Senegal and West Africa
by Jacques Berthelot
Outline
I – The weight of United Kingdom in the EU28 trade with Senegal
II – The huge losses of customs duties on Senegal imports from the EU28-UK
III – The impact of Ivory Coast and Ghana’s interim EPAs on Senegal and West Africa
The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) of West Africa (WA) – grouping together 15 ECOWAS’ member States plus Mauritania – was initialled in Ouagadougou on June 30, 2014 by the Chief negotiators, initialling confirmed by the Heads of State on July 10, 2014 in Abuja, but to date three States – Nigeria, the Gambia and Mauritania – have not formally signed it.
Because of this delay on September 3, 2016 the interim EPA (iEPA) of Ivory Coast (IC) – initialled on 13 December 2007 and signed on 28 November 2008 with the EU – entered into provisional application after the Ivorian Parliament authorized on 12 August 2016 the President of the Republic to ratify it, a ratification already made by the European Parliament on 25 March 2009. IC was concerned that the European Commission put out its threat to withdraw non-LDCs of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), of which of WA, from their duty free-quota free access to the EU market if the regional EPA was not ratified before 1 October 2016. IC has thus followed Ghana which has ratified its iEPA on August 3, 2016 that the European Parliament has itself ratified on 1st December and which has entered into provisional application on 15 December.
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