The Overseas Development Institute - an excellent institution - has published a briefing paper on the EU’s proposed Economic Partnership Agreements with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) nations. “At present,” the briefing says, “neither supporters nor opponents of EPAs can demonstrate convincingly that the other is wrong.” But, ACP nations “have become marginalised in EU (and global) trade and many members face serious economic problems that, often, can be resolved only if their policies change.”

I find it hard to get excited about EPAs, though it seems to me that much of the criticism of them is unjustified. What is really needed, and what would be best for ACP countries long term, is for the EU to move away from such messy preferential trading deals. It is hardly fair for the more capable African exporters to be excluding from these agreements. In fact, it could be seem as rather cynical that success stories like Ghana are given worse terms to export to Europe than countries unlikely to have much success exporting, like Chad and Sudan, who are given preferential access.

There is an argument that giving preferential access to the poorest countries might help them develop, free from the competition of stronger rivals. The problem with this view is that it has not worked out in practice. As The Economist pointed out last year, “The EU's critics argue that the ACP countries need to retain some shelter behind which they can rear their infant industries… But the 1975 Lomé convention afforded them precisely that: generous access to EU markets and no obligation to open up at home. Thirty years later, the infant industries have yet to grow up. Indeed, the ACP countries' share of the EU market has dropped, from 8% in 1975 to less than 3% by the time of the Cotonou agreement.”

The ideal would be for the EU to unilaterally open up in a non-discriminatory way, end the discriminatory trading regime with the ACP, and divert some of the aid it is spending in middle income countries to help ACP countries adapt to the new arrangement.