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several writers as evidence of the EU’s lack of political willingness to searchfor models more in accord with the interests of the ACP countries (Faber andOrbie, 2009; Mold, 2007, Hurt, 2003).Nonetheless, at the end of 1998 the process of negotiation began which wouldgive birth to the Cotonú Agreement. In the negotiations the EU pressedstrongly for a major reorientation of previous agreements towards a new onebased on reciprocal liberalization of trade, as a way of improving the efficiencyand competitiveness of the productive systems of the ex-colonies and theircapacity to participate in the world economy. Paradoxically, the standpoint ofthe representatives of the ACP countries was very different. They alwayspressed for extending the old model as long as possible and, if this was notfeasible, they supported flexibility on the most sensitive questions in the newagreement and for a period of transition which would minimise the traumaticnature of an adjustment to the new regime (Hurt, 2003; Hartzenberg, 2000;Gibb, 2000; Zhuawu, 2000).The leading role of the European Commission's DG Trade over the DGDevelopment in the negotiation of EPAs, also helps to understand the biasedand restrictive approach of the EU throughout this process (Hurt, 2009 ). Inthis way, all seems to be resulting in unwillingness to accommodate theinterests and concerns of ACP countries, and AS more specifically, in the finaloutcome of the negotiations for the new model (Goodison, 2009).In June 2000, 18 months after the start of negotiations between the two sides,the Cotonú Agreement was signed. It was designed as a substitute for theregulatory framework in force during the previous 25 years. The Agreementextended the Lomé preferences on a temporary basis up to the end of thenegotiations on the EPAs, expected to be reached by the end of 2007. Thebasic change was that from the old trade regime of unilateral preferences toone of reciprocal preferences, under which trade liberalization would occur inboth directions through the setting up of free trade areas. This was consistentwith the method of open regionalism which was mentioned at the beginning ofthis paper. The new method was seen as a way of formally tying Europe withits historical areas of influence, in a context in which European countries seethemselves as in some measure threatened by some of the emergent8