CONTINENTAL DRIFT Top trade advisor to the African Union Carlos Lopes says the launch of the African Continental Free Trade Area in January has more symbolic than practical effects give that many of its key protocols still have to be negotiated...

While Carlos Lopes the AU's chief negotiator on the post-Cotonou treaty and the former executive secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa is the main driver of AU Commission policy most of the momentum comes from member states especially South Africa (AC Vol 59 No 21 Who speaks for Africa...

In the meantime AU policy is led by former Executive Secretary of the UN Economic Commission for Africa Carlos Lopes who is now the High Representative of the AU Commission in its negotiations with the EU post-2020...

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Some countries are comfortable with the status quo and others like the AU's chief negotiator on post-Cotonou Carlos Lopes want an ambitious continent-to-continent political and trade relationship with the EU that cuts out the ACP...

It will take two to three years to see an appreciable difference in trade patterns and growth according to Carlos Lopes former executive secretary of the UN's Economic Commission for Africa and an advisor to and negotiator for the AU on the new free trade zone...

Carlos Lopes one of Africa's leading development economists and a chief advisor to and negotiator for the African Union said that South Africa –like Nigeria Angola and Algeria – has a tough few years ahead of it...

The ACP-EU relationship remains an ongoing source of conflict and there is frustration on both sides: from the African Union led by the AU's chief negotiator on post-Cotonou Carlos Lopes that the EU prefers to negotiate with an organisation that is essentially a supplicant with few ambitions beyond receiving aid; and from Brussels that African countries do not yet speak with a united voice and are not in the Commission's eyes a reliable partner on trade...

The African Union's chief negotiator Carlos Lopes is resented by his EU counterparts who see him as too assertive...