The EMFTA is usually seen as a programme for long-term structural reforms needed to encourage private sector exports and to orient SMCs towards global markets. However, significant social costs are expected to result from the economic reforms encouraged by the EMFTA. SMCs may demand more reciprocity with the EU, including improved EU market access for agricultural products, in order to counterbalance the measures undertaken to open domestic markets to industrial imports.

It seems easy to arrive at the consensus that poverty reduction in SMCs should be an EU strategy goal. But this consensus weakens when increased market access for SMC exports is proposed as the main instrument for development. Fears about the EMFTA have arisen among Southern European farmers that are under competitive pressure because of their production similarities with SMCs. These fears stem from the belief that trade liberalisation may impoverish EU farmers, and are articulated through two separate arguments. The first refers to the demand for fair play in international trade competition, namely with regards to issues of labour and environmental standards. The second argument underlines the weak evidence of the impact trade has on poverty. Market concentration in agricultural markets hampers the assessment of trade liberalisation for these products, which are considered the basis for comparative advantages in most SMCs. Although many of the constraints on SMC exports are supply-related, existing evidence about the long-term role of foreign direct investment in job creation is far from conclusive.

One flaw in both arguments is that the scepticism about the benefits of trade tends to result in non-cooperative stances, in spite of the widespread - and theoretically founded - opinion among trade economists in favour of trade liberalisation. It seems clear that "no-market access" would not be the right message to give to SMCs. Access refusal could even worsen the status of the poor. However, evidence for a positive link between market access in developed countries and poverty reduction in SMCs is lacking. Case studies, for example, might help to support the views of those who maintain that "trade" is better than "aid" as a tool for development. In the past, economic analysis has been carried out at a very general level. Macroeconomic impacts and broad impacts on employment and exports have often been discussed in literature on Euro-Mediterranean integration. However, many of the impacts of regional integration are local in nature, and concern specific territories, communities and households. More research efforts are clearly needed to assess the effects the EMFTA has on poverty.

The question also arises as to whether a common approach for Mediterranean agricultural regions is indeed possible. Negotiations on agriculture, within the EMFTA framework, have rarely taken into account SMC development needs, including food security and rural development. There is also a contradiction between the Common Agricultural Policy, with its official stance defending the multifunctionality of European rural spaces, and EU capacity to create incentives in SMC rural areas. In fact, the EU's 'multifunctionality' concept is far from what we could consider a 'global public good'.