| Summary: | ABSTRACT This study examines the impact of the EU’s trade policy on the integrity of SACU in the context of the EPA negotiations, which is expected to be signed in early-mid 2009. To this end, it analyses the policy leverage (i.e. conditionality, issue-linkage and sanctioning) exerted by the EU on SACU countries towards signing onto the EPA. It also examines the intra-SACU arrangements between on the one hand, Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland (BLNS), and on the other, South Africa which brings into perspective the highly unequal levels of economic size and level of development. The study posits that in a trade negotiation with a dominant trading partner, smaller countries will face much higher opportunity costs than medium-sized countries, in which case smaller states will accept the terms of a more dominant trading power much easier than medium-sized states. Overall, the study concludes that South Africa’s unwillingness to sign onto the EPA alongside its SACU partners is a product of insufficient pressure on the part of the EU and differing domestic and regional interests to those of the BLNS.
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