The ACP group has enjoyed a special relationship with the European Union since the 1975, year of the signing of the Lomé Convention. Key aspects of that relationship involve trading arrangements and development support. Under the Lomé convention, exports from ACP countries were granted preferential market access to the EU. Crucially, the Lomé system of preferences was non-reciprocal, meaning that ACP countries did not have to open their market to European exports in exchange for preferential access to the EU.
 
The non-reciprocal nature of this concession was challenged in 1995 by the United States in the WTO, who ruled in favour of the US in 1996. This effectively meant that the ACP group would have to negotiate a fully-fledged, reciprocal, free trade agreement with the EU. Following this development, the EU and ACP countries agreed in the Cotonou agreement to move towards reciprocal trade agreements, so called “Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs)”, before the expiry of the WTO waiver in December 2007. These agreements are negotiated on a regional basis, the CARIFORUM region being the only one to date having signed a full EPA.
 
Different trade regimes for EU market access.

ACP countries are currently exporting to the EU under three different regimes; EPAs and Interim EPAs, the Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme (available only to Least Developed Countries (LDCs), and the ‘standard’ Generalized System of Preferences (GSP).

To find out under which trade arrangement a specific country currently exports to the EU,we encourage you to make use of our below Map of the World.

For further details of what tariffs apply for each product, see the Trade statistics and Tariffs Details Section.

Map of Trading Arrangements