On the European side , it is not actual opposition. It is the Member States, however, reflecting the views of their business circles, which do not feel that the ACP constitutes a political or trade priority. Some inertia on their part is to be feared therefore. On the ACP side , stiffer opposition may be encountered, for a variety of reasons. The first is the weakness of the private sector in ACP countries.
State ownership is still prevalent, in spite of a movement towards some privatisation.
The second reason, which seriously exacerbates the first, is that this private sector is badly organised and lacks structure. Of course, there are exceptions to this general observation, and things are slowly moving in the right direction. The third reason, and the most serious of the three, is the traditionally preponderant role played by the state in ACP economies. Since gaining independence, ACP states have mostly developed centralised economies, they have nationalised foreign-owned companies, and they have created public institutions and state enterprises. The institutional and legal environment has been built up not so much, one could say, to encourage the development of enterprises, but rather to allow the state to extract maximum profit from them.