- EU and ACP (Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States), have concluded the negotiations for a new treaty that will replace the 20-year-old Cotonou agreement.
- This partnership is one of the EU’s oldest agreements between the European Union and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).
EU and ACP (Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States), have concluded the negotiations for a new treaty that will replace the 20-year-old Cotonou agreement. This partnership is one of the EU’s oldest agreements between the European Union and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).
The new treaty goes beyond the eradication of poverty and sustainable development and covers a broader range of areas, such as climate protection, human rights and migration issues.
The 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific states are mostly former colonies of EU nations. The first agreement called the Lomé Convention was signed in 1975 focussing on development aid and trade. This was followed by the Cotonou Agreement. The new treaty once signed and ratified will replace the Contonou agreement signed in June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin.
Robert Dussey, Togo’s foreign minister, representing the OAPS and Jutta Urpilainen, the Finnish EU Commissioner responsible for international partnerships representing the European Union were the chief negotiators who concluded the negotiations for a new partnership agreement. Both chief negotiators admitted that it was a tough task to reconcile the views and sensitivities of 27 EU states and 79 ACP countries.
There have been concerns about the negotiations and the renewal of the partnership as to how a single agreement can cover three vastly different regions of the world. It was also pointed out that the whole of Northern Africa is not part of OACPS. To solve this concern, negotiators responded by incorporating three different regional protocols, one for the African, one for the Pacific and one for the Caribbean countries.
