Brussels, 07/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - What should be the nature and content of the partnership between the EU and the developing states in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific that are members of the ACP Group after 2020 when the Cotonou Agreement expires?
In order to enrich their reflection on this question, the European Commission and European External Action Service (EEAS) launched a 12-week public consultation, on Tuesday 6 October, on what this unique partnership for development between the EU and 78 ACP states should become. The results of this consultation - Towards a new partnership between the EU and ACP countries - will feed into the analysis that the Commission will carry out in 2016 to assess how to adapt EU-ACP relations to the new challenges of common interest in a multi-polar world.
All interested parties are asked to respond to 43 questions in order to give their opinion on the effectiveness of this partnership, on the positive points to be strengthened, and on the areas which should be redefined. Interested parties will have the opportunity to say if this partnership has achieved its goals in terms of political dialogue and human rights, trade, development cooperation and promoting sustainable development. More specifically, the Commission and the EEAS want to know, for example, if the EU-ACP partnership has enabled global challenges to be tackled, if it has enabled the ACP countries to be integrated into the global economy, if the partnership's financing through the European Development Fund, outside the EU budget, is a good thing, and what could be improved with regard to peace and security, the fight against terrorism and organised crime, sustainable development and growth, migration, and political cooperation.
Nowhere is the idea put forward of a potential break-up of the group - which nevertheless happened before with the strategic partnerships set up by the EU with each of the three regions of the group, and with the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) concluded with the sub-regions of the group to replace the unilateral trade preferences the ACP countries enjoyed on the European market with asymmetrical free trade agreements compatible with WTO rules. However, the public consultation questionnaire asks, for example, if it is useful to include trade relations in the post-Cotonou agreement and it other countries with the same level of economic development as the ACP should be included in the future partnership.
Ministerial debate on 12 October. Post-2020 EU-ACP relations will be the subject of an initial ministerial exchange between Europeans at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on 12 October.
The ACP Group began reflecting on its future a long time ago. Concerned for renewed solidarity that is adapted to the new international situation, the ACP Group wants to reposition itself on the international scene as a more effective and more visible global actor (see EUROPE 11224).
The Georgetown Agreement which founded the ACP Group dates back to 1975. The Cotonou Agreement, signed for 20 years in 2000, succeeded the Lomé Conventions, which from 1963 linked the European Community to the former colonies of certain member states. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)