Trade Negotiations Insights • Volume 7 • Number 8 • October 2008

The 2010 revision of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement

by Geert Laporte (1)

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The EU-ACP Cotonou Partnership Agreement (hereafter Cotonou) was signed in 2000 for a period of 20 years, with revisions allowed every ﬁve years. Such a regular update is needed to keep the Agreement relevant in a rapidly changing international and ACP-EU context. And this is exactly what happened during the ﬁrst revision in 2005, which mainly focused on changes in the political chapter of Cotonou.

Cotonou is now quickly approaching its second revision, due to take place in 2010. Both the ACP and the EU started preparations in the ﬁrst half of 2008. The European Commission established an inter-service Task Force, whilst discussions with the EU member states on the European draft negotiating mandate are scheduled for the last quarter of 2008. The ACP have also started their own internal reﬂections on the revision and asked a group of ambassadors to lead this process with the ACP Secretariat. The October 2008 ACP Heads of State meeting in Accra has also put the revision of Cotonou on the agenda. In advance of the 2010 revision, both the ACP and the EU have to notify each other of the issues for the agenda before the end of February 2009. Thereafter, the formal ACP-EU negotiations on the revision will take place between March 2009 and the beginning of 2010.

Not business as usual

But the 2010 Cotonou revision should not just be business as usual. If it is to be taken seriously, both the EU and the ACP will need to carefully reﬂ ect over the coming months on the following questions: What major changes are needed in the 2010 revision? How will the ACP-EU partnership adapt to the various external and internal challenges in a dynamic way? Which are the areas of strong common interest for the ACP as a group? How can the ACP strengthen complementarity and division of labour with newly emerging players such as the African Union (AU) and the regional economic communities (RECs) and groupings?

In recent weeks and months, ECDPM has stimulated nonpartisan debate among ACP, AU and EU players on these and other key questions. (2) These consultations provide some ﬁrst impressions of the key areas that should be addressed in the 2010 revision of Cotonou and beyond.

Dark clouds over Cotonou?

There are multiple pressures on the existing Cotonou model of ACP-EU partnership. One of the major challenges is the increasing differentiation between the needs and expectations of the various regions within the ACP. In the past few years, regional ACP bodies have become more important, largely because of the negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA). The emergence and growing importance of the African Union as a partner for the EU, the Joint EU-Africa Strategy and speciﬁc EU strategies for the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc have also created differences within the ACP.

Moreover, the most recent waves of EU enlargement to include several Eastern European countries may affect the traditionally strong ACP-EU partnership. For most of these new member states, the ACP rank quite low in the hierarchy of priorities. What might be even more worrying for the ACP is that most of these new member states will be in the EU Presidency Chair between 2011 and 2020. Last but not least, is the issue of the European Development Fund (EDF) budget: as it stands, the European Community development support to the ACP is currently under the EDF, but the question of whether this would be shifted to the EU budget instead will be back on the agenda in 2013 at the end of the 10th EDF. Even in the case that the EDF framework is maintained, the period covered by the succeeding EDFs is no longer a regular ﬁve year cycle, so the period for the following EDF is not clear.

Against this rapidly changing background it is not surprising that critical voices have openly started to question the future of the Cotonou Agreement and of the ACP Group. More in-depth reﬂection will be needed in the short term (2010 revision), medium-term (2010-2015) and long-term (2015-2020). And rather than just focusing on cosmetic revisions in 2010 in the current text of the Agreement, ACP-driven reﬂ ection should be deepened and broadened, with an examination of how the ACP sees its common future with the EU.

What does the ACP still have in common?

There still seems to be a strong feeling amongst the ACP countries that the main strength of the group is its collective bargaining and political power, gained by individual members negotiating as a bloc in international fora such as the WTO. Moreover, ACP countries share mutual interests linked to their common classiﬁcation as developing and particularly vulnerable countries. Many ACP countries also share a longstanding history of close relations with different parts of Europe resulting in common cultural and social values and systems, as well as economic ties.

In addition to the political weight created by the 79 countries involved in trade negotiations, the ACP identify other key areas of shared interests such as cooperation for development, culture, migration, environment protection and climate change. There are also sub-groups that transcend the continental regions within the ACP, such as the group of small island developing states, which share particular experiences and concerns. Highly vulnerable countries that are particularly affected by global problems such as the rise of oil prices, external economic shocks, the negative effects of excessive free trade, shocks on the ﬁnancial markets and climate change, also have signiﬁ cant commonalities. While some useful work has been done by the ACP Ambassadors and ACP Secretariat, it is now time for the ACP Group to further accelerate and deepen its reﬂ ections on these shared values and common interests.

Where do the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc ﬁt in this picture?

In the context of increasing pressures on the Cotonou Partnership and the ACP Group, Africa will continue to occupy a key strategic place for the EU. But a stronger focus by the EU on Africa could have major implications for the Caribbean and the Paciﬁ c as smaller ACP regions. Although the EU has developed its strategy towards the Caribbean, contrary to the Joint EU-Africa Strategy, this has not provoked much debate in either region. Thus, in addition to the important EPA negotiations, the Caribbean and the Paciﬁc should start strategic reﬂ ection on how to sustain and reinforce their special relationship with the EU in areas such as food security and agriculture, migration, climate change and sustainable energy - now and beyond 2020. CARIFORUM and the Paciﬁc Forum should take a lead role in this reﬂection.

What are the priorities for the 2010 revision process?

The 2010 revision provides a unique opportunity for the negotiating parties to reconﬁrm the strategic long-term importance they attach to the partnership rather than simply negotiating some new language in the text of the Agreement. The ACP’s internal review of the added value and shared interests of the Group may provide a useful basis from which to move towards the 2010 revision.

The following areas could be given more attention in the revision. Some suggestions relate to amendments to the text of Cotonou or to new provisions. Others relate more to practical improvements and less to rewordings:

(1) Foster a more reciprocal and sustained political dialogue (Article 8) and strengthen governance provisions to better respect the spirit of the partnership and to avoid one side in the partnership imposing its priorities (for instance, in programming or with the unilaterally created new “thematic envelopes”).

(2) Better reﬂect trends towards increased regionalisation and pan-African development. The emergence of the regional groupings as a result of EPAs and the African Union has raised concerns there will be institutional duplication and overlap. Revision should update the Cotonou text to explicitly reﬂ ect the latest developments on EPAs including the establishment of new EPA institutions (e.g. Joint EPA councils, trade and development committees and parliamentary committees). It should seek to ensure that the roles ascribed to these new bodies are adjusted to ﬁt those of the existing ACP-EU institutions. As such, the relationship between EPA and Cotonou institutions should be clariﬁ ed and properly articulated to ensure coherence. As far as the AU and the Joint EU-Africa Strategy is concerned, the EU is now exploring whether the 2010 revision could create a special envelope for the AU and pan-African activities to be mobilised from the intra-ACP envelope of the EDF.

(3) Strengthen national ACP Parliaments to make the Cotonou processes more democratic, boosting their capacity - and the capacity of other key institutions - to help them play an active role in the dialogue, programming, implementation, monitoring, review and control of the Agreement.

(4) Establish a mechanism to strengthen monitoring, review, and enforcement in Cotonou. The mechanism might take the form of an ombudsman type of service (as in EU institutions) or an independent inspection panel (along the lines of those in the World Bank or the African Development Bank).

(5) Exploit the opportunities on policy coherence provided by the Agreement, notably Article 12, which is currently hardly used. It provides for the ACP to “initiate” discussions and “request” consultation on matters of concern to the ACP Group or its member states relating to “the coherence of Community policies and their impact on the implementation of the Agreement.”

(6) Apply principles of the Paris Agenda in practice (ownership, alignment, etc) and follow-up closely on how ﬁnancial allocations, particularly in the facilities funded from the intra-ACP envelope, are handled.

(7) Promote awareness raising, communication and capacity building among stakeholders on Cotonou. The general perception is that the implementation of the revised 2005 Cotonou has so far been unsatisfactory, although its text is seen as largely acceptable.

Conclusion

In addition to adapting the Cotonou text to reﬂ ect political, development cooperation, trade and institutional chapters, it is important that the 2010 revision invests in strengthening the implementation of the Agreement. A key challenge is the gap between the formal Cotonou framework and the actual practice in the ACP-EU cooperation. While Cotonou is still seen as a relevant and valuable instrument, it is increasingly apparent that the partnership is no longer taken as seriously as it was in the past. To some extent this is the result of wider forces in global affairs. But it could also be caused by a seemingly decreased commitment of the partners to cooperation and a growing disenchantment with the partnership. The 2010 revision provides a good opportunity to anticipate, prepare and redeﬁ ne the future of the ACP-EU relations.

1. Geert Laporte is Head of Institutional Relations at ECDPM. This article is an abridged version of an ECDPM note prepared for the 6th Summit of the ACP Heads of State and Government in Accra, Ghana, 30 September to 3 October 2008.

2. See ECDPM, The 2010 Revision and the Future of the Cotonou Partnership Agreement, Report of an informal seminar, Maastricht, 4 July 2008, ECDPM Discussion Paper, No 85, August 2008 from which part of this paper is drawn.