Cotonouavtalet - egenskaper och orsaker. En studie utifrån liberalistiskt och protektionistiskt perspektiv

The EU has for a long time had a special relationship with its former colonies in Africa Caribbean and the Pacific, called the ACP?countries. This relationship is about to change radically with the new partnership agreement signed in June 2000 in Cotonou. This essay aims to study the EU ?ACP Partnership Agreement from the perspectives of two different theories: The liberalist, free-trade policy theory and the nationalist/regionalist, protectionist theory. The main field of research is trade, but other areas will also be covered. The essay is divided into three ques¬tions: What has happened with the new agreement, how can this change be char¬acterized and why has this change taken place? The essay can conclude that there has been a shift towards a more liberalized trade policy and that this can be char¬acterized in two levels: The international/external level where free-trade policy and liberalisation in the leading theory and the internal level where the liberali¬sation in fact holds protectionist undertones. This conclusion can further be used in answering the third and last question. The causes of the change towards a more liberalized policy can also be divided into the two levels, external and internal, and these reasons, when divided into these levels, shows that the liberalization of the cooperation and the adaptation to WTO rules as an example is as much signs of self interests of the industrialized world as a genuine will to get the develop¬ment process started and as much a decrease of the importance of the ACP-countries as a will to make them more integrated into the world economy