EU preferential agricultural trade agreements with developing countries: a comparison between the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the EU Generalised System of Preferences

The European Union (EU) has a clear ambition towards developing countries (DCs): their integration into the world economy, including through the progressive elimination of trade restrictions. In order to enhance DCs’ trade interests in industrial and agricultural products, the EU provides DCs with reduced tariffs under preferential trade arrangements with the aim of promoting industrialization and accelerating economic growth. However, an important cleavage has developed between the countries sharing strong economic and historical links with the EU that have special preferential arrangements and the balance of the world’s DCs who remain outside these schemes. The paper compares the preferences access obtained for DCs’ agricultural commodities to the EU market under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the EU Generalized System of Preferences in order to analyze, from a legal perspective, the issue of EU preferential and non-preferential trade status for agricultural food commodities.