Brussels, 11/01/2016 (Agence Europe) - According to a study on the future of ACP-EU relations published by the European Centre for Development of Policy Management (ECDPM), it is time for relations between the EU and the group of 79 developing countries of the ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) to be rethought in depth in order to modernise them and increase their relevance for after 2020.
According to the study, the Cotonou Agreement - which constitutes the binding legal framework for these relations until 2020 and which has a total budget of €30.4 billion - is not adapted to meet the challenges of the new world programme for sustainable development until 2030. Furthermore, the study says that the Cotonou Agreement shows limited performance as regards the fulfilment of its key commitments on the political and trade level. The study aims to enrich the ongoing consultation on the future and on the content of the ACP-EU partnership after 2020, on the basis of a joint European Commission and European External Action Service (EEAS) document (see EUROPE 11463 and 11405).
“What's lacking in this debate is solid proof of the concrete practice of ACP-EU cooperation. An analysis of the political economy can help plug this gap because it doesn't examine what would be desirable, but how things happen and why”, says ECDPM deputy director Geert Laporte.
According to the ECDPM's 122-page in-depth analysis: - the ACP-EU partnership has lost attractiveness over the years and the Cotonou Agreement is now especially an aid allocation mechanism with a limited political and trade value - only a handful of ACP countries have made effective use of it in terms of economic development and the unilateral preferences that were granted them, and “the way in which the EPAs were negotiated put heavy strains on ACP-EU relations and backfired on the quality of cooperation”, the ECDPM states; - overall, the performance of this partnership (beyond aid - the assessment of which by the member states is considered generally relevant with regard to development priorities) is below expectations, mainly due to political factors; - furthermore, the successive reviews of the Cotonou Agreement have not enabled the current gap to be tackled between the laudable ambitions and their concrete implementation.
The ECDPM says new options should be explored and new arrangements found in order to come into line with the dynamic of regionalisation and be adapted to the challenges of 21st Century international cooperation. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)