The negotiations between the ACP (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) group of countries and the EU on the updated partnership agreement that will take over from the Cotonou Agreement when it expires in February 2020 have officially been open since August, but their start has been postponed until the end of September or early October. This comes at the request of the African Union (AU), to give the AU time to come to an agreement on Africa's common position on the future institutional architecture of the post-Cotonou agreement, as this still needs to be set out in detail.
The news was confirmed at the meeting of the European Parliament's development committee on Wednesday 29 August – its first meeting since the summer break.
This involved the first exchange of views between the members of this parliamentary committee, representative of the European Commission and ACP ambassadors since the two parties adopted their respective mandates (see EUROPE 12047, 12041).
The thorny issues raised at the development committee debate were the AU's resolve to substitute the ACP Group (which is of concern to both MEPs and the ACP countries), the fear that the Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) might be ousted to the benefit of regional parliamentary assemblies and questioning on the predictability of the financial contribution of the future partnership.
The deputy director-general of the European Commission's departments for international cooperation and development, Koen Doens, said the negotiations were officially opened through an exchange of letters between European Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development Neven Mimica and the secretary general of the ACP group of countries, Patrick Ignatius Gomes. The chief negotiators will be Mimica for the EU, and Togo's foreign affairs minister for the ACP.
"Overall, we can say the Commission's main recommendations are maintained in the final mandate, with a common base for all the ACP, but also strong regional partnerships that are legally binding, and a simplified institutional organisation. We discussed the wording of the 'migration' chapter at length with the member states, but the result is balanced. If I compare this mandate with the Parliament's resolution (see EUROPE 12041) there is complete synergy on the essential elements", he said.
Doens gave assurances that the EU wanted a strong parliamentary dimension "with us drawing on the experience of the JPA to create regional assemblies".
In the opinion of the deputy secretary-general of the European External Action Service (EEAS), Christian Leffler, the ACP's mandate draws on the current structures while the EU has chosen a formula that reflects the development of the three regions (Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific).
"On the ACP side, discussions are still ongoing, notably within the 'Africa' group on the interpretation of the structure of the negotiations, which is why Mimica agreed to postpone the official launch of the negotiations so that all the questions might be ironed out at the level of the Africa group and ACP", Doens said. The representative of the AU mission to the EU said that a meeting would take place on 14 September to address the matter.
Patrick I. Gomes denied that the ACP Group wants to keep the institutional architecture of the Cotonou Agreement. "We are speaking about post-Cotonou, but the agreement must have a nerve centre. We will start discussions about the institutional architecture in early October. We need to agree on the nerve centre, that is why our mandate contains cross-cutting subjects (Ed: like the environment, migration, gender equality issues). We want proportionality and subsidiarity. And we approve the European Parliament's position on the Joint Parliamentary Assembly" (see EUROPE 12046), he said.
He also said that the ACP Group wants "a strengthened partnership, but starting from the acquis", and he added: "We put the strategic questions in the universal framework of the SDG (sustainable development goals). This partnership must bring a real contribution at global level. It is in the context of the SDG that we must place the negotiations and start from the acquis". According to the ACP, the important cross-cutting issue of migration and mobility must be addressed on the basis of the future Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which was the subject of an agreement at the UN in July and is due to be formally concluded in Marrakesh in December (see EUROPE 12066). (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)