A post published on the website bilaterals.org, a collaborative space that supports movements struggling against bilateral trade and investment deals which are accused to serve more the interests of corporations than people, raises concerns regarding the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and in particular regarding the Protocol on digital trade. We will not address all the points in the article, but at least a few ones deserve attention. The post has a very critical view in general of the AfCFTA and its Protocols, being in some cases overly pessimistic regarding the purported dangerous effects of this agreement. In any case, it also rases some interesting issues that deserve at least some attention.

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Regional Economic Communities, or “RECs” are a peculiarity and a feature of the African economic integration model. Some of them were existing already before the establishment of the Organization for the African Unity (OAU), the predecessor of the African Union, like in the case of SACU, a customs union that is considered the ancient in the world, or the Council of Understanding (Conseil de l’Entente), a West African regional co-operation forum created in May 1959 by Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) and Dahomey (now Benin), and subsequently joined by Togo in 1966. The Treaty of Abuja (1991) at art. 2.a introduced the principle of the strengthening of existing RECs and of their creation in the various sub-regions where they did not exist, defining them as foundation (“building blocks”) of the future African Economic Community (article 88). The role of RECs as building blocks of the African integration process is also reiterated in the last recital of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement and by art. 5, which defines them as building blocks of the AfCFTA.

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