Overview
The ACP is a group of 79 States with which the European Union (EU) has a special relationship. It comprises seven regional subgroups:
Current trade arrangements with ACP countries are based upon Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the Generalised Scheme of Preferences.
EU trade in agriculture with ACP countries has increased by over 50% over the past decade. As the primary destination for agricultural and transformed goods from the region, the EU is the main trade partner of ACP countries, in terms of both their exports and imports.
Trade with the ACP region provides EU consumers with a wealth of tropical products, out-of-season products, and competitively priced goods, including cocoa, coffee and tea, tropical fruits and spices. The predominant categories of exports from the EU are cereals and cereal-based products, dairy products, poultry meat, and alcoholic beverages such as beer and wine.
CARIFORUM
In the Caribbean, the EU has an EPA with 14 Member States of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) since October 2008.
The agricultural chapter of the agreement identifies co-operation priorities, including:
- the development of export market capabilities;
- compliance with quality standards;
- the promotion of private investment in production;
- the issue of food security.
As part of the agreement, the EU has committed to undertake prior consultations on trade policy developments that may impact the competitive positions of traditional agricultural products, including bananas, rum, rice and sugar.
The EU imports various agricultural products from the CARIFORUM region, such as bananas, tropical fruit, sugar, rum, spices, cocoa beans and rice.
All CARIFORUM agricultural goods benefit from duty-free quota-free access to the EU market. In order to protect local producers in CARIFORUM countries, a number of EU agricultural products are indefinitely excluded from liberalisation within the EPA, while other sensitive goods are excluded for up to 25 years.
The agreement is accompanied by declarations concerning agricultural products, including a joint declaration on bananas, acknowledging the importance of the sector for several CARIFORUM countries and setting out measures to support the industry against potential challenges.
Related information
Economic partnership agreement
West Africa
The West Africa EPA region is composed of 16 countries:
The EU has initialled an EPA with 16 West African states. Until the approval of that regional EPA with West Africa by all parties, the EU started applying two separate “Stepping-Stone” EPAs with Ivory Coast and Ghana in 2016.
The EU is West Africa's biggest trading partner and is the main export market for transformed products from the region’s agribusinesses.
Amongst the main imports into the EU from West Africa are cocoa beans, cocoa paste and powder, tropical fruit, nuts and spices.
Agri-products exported from the EU to the region include wheat, infant food, cereal-based products, milk powders, whey and poultry products.
Related information
EU trade relations with West Africa
Stepping stone Economic Partnership Agreement with Côte d'Ivoire
Stepping stone Economic Partnership Agreement with Ghana
Central Africa
The Central Africa EPA region is composed of eight countries:
Since 2014, the EU and Cameroon apply an interim economic partnership agreement, as a temporary solution toward the achievement of a regional EPA with the entire Central African region.
The interim EPA identifies agriculture and food safety as priority areas for capacity building and modernisation, with increases sought in both the quantity and quality of the goods and services produced by agriculture and fisheries. The interim agreement also places limitations on the introduction of new agricultural export subsidies.
Amongst the main agricultural exports from the Central Africa region to the EU are wood, cocoa and tropical fruits.
In turn, products exported from the EU to the region include malt, milk powders and cereals.
Related information
EU-Central Africa trade relations
EU-Central Africa economic partnership agreement
Eastern and Southern Africa
The East and Southern Africa (ESA) region is composed of 11 countries:
The EU applies an interim Economic Partnership Agreement with Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zimbabwe. Negotiations to reach a more comprehensive and inclusive agreement are in progress.
The interim EPA includes a standalone chapter on agriculture, which sets out the joint goals of promoting sustainability and productivity, developing agro-industry and trade, and ensuring food security, but does not cover market access issues, such as tariffs and safeguards, which are included in the “Trade in Goods” section.
The agreement also includes relaxed rules of origin for a number of agricultural products that were identified by the ESA region as important in their trade with the EU. Rules of origin that will be used in the final EPA still need to be negotiated.
The East and Southern Africa region receives a variety of agri-food products from the EU, such as wheat, pet foods, pasta, pastry, biscuits and bread, infant food and malt.
The region also supplies the EU with a number of important commodities, including coffee, tea, cut flowers, gums, resins, plant extracts and oilseeds.
Related information
East African community
The East African community (EAC) is a custom union of six countries:
Negotiations for an EPA between the EU and EAC were finalised in 2014, but the agreement was not ratified by all EAC countries. The EU and Kenya concluded a bilateral EPA which entered into force in 2024. That agreement is open to accession by other EAC countries.
The EU-Kenya EPA includes a chapter on agriculture. EU agricultural processors and other food business importers benefit from an array of products/ingredients entering Europe at low cost which will strengthen their processing and selling activities in the value chain, thanks to the immediate duty-free quota-free access to the EU for all Kenyan agricultural exports. The EPA also gives rise to increased opportunities for EU exporters of agri-food products, thanks to a partial, gradual opening of the Kenyan market that will increase over time (some tariff lines are liberalised upon entry into force some others at later stages up until 17 years since entry into force).
Agricultural products make up the majority of exports from the East African community to the EU. Amongst the main agri-products are coffee, cut flowers, tea, tobacco, fish and vegetables.
The EU in turn exports a number of agricultural products to the East African community, such as wheat, food preparations, spirits, liqueurs and vermouth.
Related information
Economic Partnership Agreement with Kenya
Southern African development community
In June 2016, the EU signed an EPA with members of the Southern African development community (SADC) EPA Group, comprising of:
Angola has an option to join the agreement in the future. Angola’s accession talks are ongoing.
The EPA caters for a wide variety of agricultural imports from the Southern African region, for example: beef from Botswana, fish from Namibia, sugar from Eswatini, or fruit and wine from South Africa.
The EU also exports a number of agricultural products to the region, such as spirits, poultry products, vegetable oils, wheat and other cereals.
Related information
Economic partnership agreement with the SADC EPA states
Pacific region
The EU applies an interim EPA with four Pacific States (Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa and the Solomon Islands). The Council of the European Union has approved the accession of Niue, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu to the EPA, and accession is open to other Pacific States.
The EU-Pacific interim EPA acknowledges that the removal of barriers to trade may create challenges for producers in the agricultural and food sectors of the Pacific states, and that cooperation is required to mitigate these challenges.
Exports from the EU to the Pacific region include vegetable, fruit and nut preparations, meat preparations, chocolate and confectionaries, wine and olive oil.
The Pacific region supplies the EU market with products such as palm and palm-kernel oils, coffee, tea, sugar and tropical fruit.
