The Economic Partnership Agreements, still under negotiation, between the European Union and the ACP countries, would imply for the latter an average reduction by 26% of their total customs receipts in 2022, according to the estimations of the CEPII.
By that time, customs duties on “substantially all the trade” between the two parties will have to be reciprocally eliminated, for the agreements to be WTO-compatible.
The impact of this loss of income will be very different according to the importance of tariffs in government revenues. While they will be small for countries such as Uganda, Namibia or Swaziland, the budgets of several Western African countries, notably Ghana or Togo, and to a greater extent Ivory Coast, should be particularly affected. For these countries, a financial program which allows them to deal with the reduction in customs revenues remains a key question.