EU Approves Updated Cocoa Trade Agreement

The International Cocoa Agreement

The European Parliament has formally agreed to allow the European Union to approve changes to the International Cocoa Agreement. This agreement is a trade deal that controls how cocoa—the main ingredient in chocolate—is bought, sold, and traded between the EU and other countries.

Key Outcomes

• The Parliament has given its consent to the proposed changes in the agreement.
• This decision allows the EU to move forward with adopting the updated rules.

What These Changes Mean

The updated agreement could affect several areas:

• EU cocoa imports.
• Cocoa prices.
• How the EU works with countries that produce cocoa.

The Process

To reach this decision, the Parliament considered several elements:

• The draft decision from the EU Council (the body representing member states).
• The draft amendments to the cocoa agreement.
• A formal request for the Parliament’s approval, as required by EU law.
• Its own rules of procedure and a recommendation from the Committee on International Trade.

Next Steps

The Parliament’s President will send this decision to:

• The EU Council.
• The European Commission.
• The governments and national parliaments of all EU member states.

Broader context

The International Cocoa Agreement (ICA) is a long-standing treaty managed by the International Cocoa Organization (ICCO) — a United Nations body founded in 1973. It brings together both cocoa-producing countries (mainly in West Africa, which grows about 70% of the world's cocoa) and cocoa-importing countries (including all 27 EU member states). Together, they account for roughly 97% of world cocoa production and about 60% of world cocoa imports.

The EU has been a party to this agreement since 2010. The amendments approved now were actually negotiated back in September 2022 and have been waiting for enough countries to formally accept them. The deadline for countries to deposit their acceptance has been extended until 22 June 2026.

The key changes introduced by the 2022 amendments are:

The global cocoa market is marked by high price volatility and significant information gaps, which substantially affect the income of smallholder farmers. The world's 5 to 6 million cocoa farmers, who work primarily on farms of less than one hectare in developing countries, receive only a fraction of the billions of dollars generated by the global cocoa processing market. The new agreement is designed to begin addressing that imbalance.

Impact on people living in the EU

For most EU residents, the direct day-to-day impact of this agreement is indirect and long-term rather than immediate.

For consumers (everyone who eats chocolate or drinks cocoa):
The agreement does not set prices in shops. However, by aiming for more stable and sustainable cocoa production, it works toward reducing the extreme price swings that have made chocolate more expensive in recent years. Greater food safety standards in the agreement could also mean more consistent quality in cocoa products reaching Europe.

For the chocolate and food industry:
EU companies that buy and process cocoa — from large chocolate manufacturers to smaller producers — operate within the framework this agreement sets. The push for better traceability and quality standards affects how they source their ingredients.

Worth noting: This agreement works alongside a separate but related EU rule — the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) — which requires companies importing cocoa into the EU to prove their cocoa does not come from recently deforested land. Together, these two frameworks are pushing the cocoa supply chain toward greater transparency and sustainability.

Impact on cocoa farmers outside the EU

The most significant real-world impact of these amendments falls on cocoa farmers, almost all of whom live outside Europe.

Extreme weather and changing climate patterns have severely impacted crop harvests and reduced the yields and revenues of smallholders. Years of low returns have driven many West African cocoa growers out of business.

The amended agreement is the first version to explicitly set achieving a living income for farmers as a core goal — meaning the international community is now formally committed, on paper, to addressing the poverty that affects millions of farming families, particularly in countries like Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana.