History

On 15 October 2008, the Caribbean became the first region among the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)
group of countries to sign a ‘full’ Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU).
Although the EPA process has generated widespread critical commentary, few analysts have stopped to
consider the motives of individual ACP countries and regions in their approach to the talks. In this paper we
consider the question of motives in relation to the CARIFORUM-EU EPA. Specifically, it asks why did
Caribbean trade negotiators feel it necessary or desirable to sign a ‘full’ EPA, containing numerous
provisions not actually mandated by the WTO, when the rest of the ACP was content to sign far less
ambitious ‘goods only’ interim agreements? In order to address this question, the paper goes beyond the
extant EU-ACP trade literature to draw insights from wider International Political Economy (IPE) scholarship,
which has analysed the actions of developing countries in relation to a whole range of ‘WTO-plus’ North-
South regional and bilateral FTAs. On this basis, the paper stands back from the complex details of the
agreement to analyse its wider significance, especially in terms the presumed trade-off between the
immediate economic benefits of improved and more secure market access against the longer-term costs of
sacrificing the regulatory autonomy, or policy space, deemed necessary to pursue the type of trade and
industrial policies deployed successfully in the past by both developed and (some) developing countries. Put
simply, the paper seeks to ascertain what ultimately the Caribbean gained from the EPA negotiations and at
what cost.

This paper analyses the results of the 2011 EU-Brazil Summit within the context of the Eurozone crisis, the developments in the Middle East and the emergence of Brazil as a major player on the world stage. It does so through a discourse analysis of the Summit’s conclusion on issues of global, regional and bilateral relevance. The paper argues that developments within the framework of the Strategic Partnership have left a lot to be desired on a practical level, and argues that the reasons for its original inception were mostly related to political objectives rather than strong functional considerations. The paper is divided into three parts. The first reviews the history of the Strategic Partnership; the second seeks to explain the concept and incentives for the 2007 agreement; finally, the third part sheds light on the events surrounding the 2011 Summit and draws conclusions regarding its outcome.

What has EU policy towards Cuba achieved? What might have been done differently?
What lessons does EU policy offer for other countries in the context of a changing
regime in Havana? Is foreign policy a key component in any peaceful transition in
Cuba?

Outside Europe, nowhere but in Latin America have integration attempts
and thinking developed so extensively across space and so consistently over time. This
article introduces the historical waves of Latin American regionalism in order to discuss
the theories applied to account for, and frequently advocate, regional integration. The
aim is twofold: on the one hand, to assess the capacity to travel of theories that have
been crafted for the EU; on the other, to draw lessons from the Latin American experiences
that may contribute to advance integration theory in general and EU studies in
particular.

The article reviews and characterizes the recent boom in South-South Cooperation (SSC) by focusing
on a specific experience: that of the member countries of the Ibero-American Conference and, in
particular, the nineteen Spanish and Portuguese-speaking Latin American countries (from Mexico to
Chile, including Cuba and Dominican Republic), plus Spain and Portugal. It seeks to understand a
kind of cooperation that is expanding under various different guises and gaining in importance in the
international development cooperation agenda with each passing year. Accordingly and in constant
reference to this specific case, the article first explores the way this kind of SSC is evolving, its new
scope, and its main features. Next, it reconstructs the bloc’s political discourse regarding SSC, as
well as the way it is pervading the international debate. With this in mind, it draws on the various
editions of the Report on South-South Cooperation in Ibero-America, prepared by the Ibero-American
General Secretariat (SEGIB), an analytical tool that, in addition to providing information, constitutes,
both in itself and by structure, an intergovernmental, horizontal, and collective instance of SSC.