| Description | Stop EPA aims to facilitate a large coalition of ACP and EU civil society organisations aiming at stopping the EU’s current approach in negotiating free trade agreements with the countries of the ACP. This coalition draws its support ACP and EU wide and follows the initiative of the Africa Trade Network to start a ‘No-to-EPA-campaign’.
Since 2002 the European Union (EU) and countries of the Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific Group (ACP) have been negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) as part of the Cotonou Agreement. EPAs aim to establish "new WTO compatible trading arrangements removing progressively barriers of trade between EU and ACP countries" which would build on "the regional integration initiatives of ACP states" and promote "sustainable development and contribute to poverty eradication in the ACP countries ". EPAs as they are currently being set up and negotiated are essentially Free Trade Agreements. The campaign call for an overhaul and review of the EU's neo-liberal external trade policy, particularly with respect to developing countries. |