EUDEVELOPING · European trade policy and developing countries

Final Activity Report Summary - EUDEVELOPING (European trade policy and developing countries)

The objective of the project was to develop methodological tools and databases in order to assess the effects of EU trade policies on developing countries, with a focus on the agricultural and food sector, and to propose ways of reforming such policies. Particular attention was paid on the coherence between the EU trade policy, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the impact on developing countries. The project has led to an extensive analysis of the CAP, which has resulted in a book with a first print of 8000 copies. This work was followed by an assessment of the EU trade policy, focusing on the impact of preferential regimes (i.e. the Generalised system of preferences for developing countries, preferential agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, Everything but arms initiative for least developed countries, etc.). This lead to a several working papers, book chapters and journal article, as well as a publication on the actual market access for developing countries (published by the 'International centre for sustainable development'). The recent CAP reform, as well as ongoing changes the EU agricultural policy and future reforms driven by the World Trade Organisation have led to a greater coherence between the various EU policies. The impact of these reforms on developing countries should, overall, be positive in the sense that some of the distortions in world market, such as those involved by EU export refunds, have largely decreased and will be eliminated in the future. However, for some particular countries, such as the Caribbean and Pacific countries that benefited from large rents because of the sugar and bananas protocols, the recent reforms in these sectors are particularly detrimental and result in economic losses. In that sense, the changes in the CAP are not fully consistent with the development assistance policy, even though preferential trade has not always been a fully successful instrument of development, in particular because of the costs of compliance that are involved. The EU biofuels policy as well as the recent CAP reforms result indirectly in a pressure for higher world prices. Even though this benefits to a large number of developing countries, it has a particularly negative impact on those that are net food importers, such as small islands and least developed counties. A book is in preparation on these issues. The project EUDEVELOPING was carried out in connection with the FP6 STREP Tradeag "Agricultural Trade Agreements", and the policy coherence project of the Institute for International Integration Studies.

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