Trade > EPAs

Trade, when it's made fair, has the potential to allow millions of people to work their own way out of poverty. But it's hard to trade with your hands tied behind your back - and impossible if you're tied up in a straitjacket .

But tying up developing countries is exactly what the EU is trying to do at the moment. Developing world workers, political leaders, farmers and businessmen all face being trussed up by a set of unfair trade deals called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) - deals which President Wade of Senegal called 'a straitjacket'. They must be changed.

Partly thanks to Oxfam Ireland campaigners and others, many African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries have resisted signing EPAs. But the EU is still using bullying tactics to try to force them to sign up, as well as turning the screw on those countries who have already bowed to intense pressure and 'initialled' (pledged to sign this year) the agreements. Tell the EU to free them from the unfairness.

The devil is in the detail. Find out exactly why EPAs are damaging