The signing ceremony for the renewed and modernised Partnership Agreement between the EU and the 79 member countries of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), which will take over from the Cotonou Agreement for the next 20 years, will follow the last ACP-EU Council of Ministers under the Cotonou Agreement on Wednesday 15 November in Apia (Samoa), in the Pacific.
“The Samoa Agreement- a name to be formally decided by the Joint Council at its 46th meeting (see EUROPE 13280/31) - will define the legal framework for our cooperation for years to come. It will enable us to tackle global challenges together”, stressed the European Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, on Tuesday from Apia. And she stressed the importance of civil society participation, as provided for in the Agreement.
The ACP-EU Council is expected to hold an exchange of views on the importance of enhanced international cooperation in the run-up to the COP28 on climate change.
The future ‘Samoa Agreement’ provides for a common set of values and six priorities: - human rights, democracy and governance; - peace and security; - human and social development; - environmental sustainability and climate change; - economic growth and sustainable development; - migration and mobility, and tailor-made agreements for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, as well as regional parliamentary assemblies.
Jutta Urpilainen and Spain’s acting Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Pilar Cancela Rodríguez, will sign the agreement on behalf of the EU.
Given the location of the signing, far from Europe, and the high profile wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, EU countries will not be represented at ministerial level.
Twenty Member States will be represented at Apia, most of them by an accredited ambassador or a plenipotentiary mandated by them in the region (in Australia, Samoa or New Zealand). Seven Member States have already pre-signed the future Samoa Agreement at the Secretariat of the Council of the EU in Brussels.
Delegations from OACPS member countries will be represented at a higher level. However, a procedure for collecting signatures has been set up to allow OACPS countries unable to attend to sign at a later date.
In any event, the provisional application of the Agreement will be effective from 1 January 2024 without having to wait for ratification procedures to be completed (see EUROPE 13280/31, 13227/7).
On Tuesday, Jutta Urpilainen and Pilar Cancela Rodríguez met members of Samoa’s civil society to prepare priorities for the Pacific region.
Carlos Zorrinho (S&D, Portuguese), MEP and co-president of the current ACP-EU joint Parliamentary Assembly, who is going to Samoa, welcomed “the entry into force of a multilateral cooperation agreement involving more than a hundred countries across four continents”. The three new regional parliamentary assemblies will initiate the implementation of the new agreement with constituent meetings currently scheduled for 18-21 February 2024 in Angola. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)