Brussels, 28/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The ACP-EC Partnership Agreement, signed in Cotonou on 20 June 2002 by the European Union and countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, will come into force on 1 April 2003. Most of the measures of the agreement are in fact already in force, following a decision to this effect by the ACP-EC Council of Ministers.
At a brief ceremony at ACP House in Brussels on 27 February, the Secretary General of the Council of the European Union lodged on behalf of the Community the act of notification of the ratification of the Partnership Agreement by the members of the Group of ACP States and the European Community and its Member States. In order to come into force the Agreement, which has been signed for 20 years, has to be ratified by the fifteen EU Member States, the European Community, and two thirds of the ACP states (in other words, but 52 of the 77), which has now been achieved.
The first Financial Protocol to the Cotonou Agreement, covering a 5 year period from 5 March 2000, has a budget of EUR 13.5 billion, incorporating EUR 1.3 bn for the regional package and EUR 2.2 billion for the new investment facility.
A communiqué issued by the Council of the EU notes that the Cotonou Agreement gives an overview and an integrated vision of development strategies based on the three mutually dependent pillars of political dialogue, economic and trade cooperation and development aid. Moreover, it bases the new partnership relations between the European Union and ACP states on the fundamental concept of appropriation of their development strategy by ACP states, and sets as fundamental partnership objectives poverty reduction and insertion of ACP economies into the global economy.
In terms of trade, the negotiations over the signing of new partnership agreements between the European Community and the ACP states were launched on 27 September 2002.