Last week saw the launch of the 25th session of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Parliamentary Assembly, bringing together members of Parliament (MP) from ACP countries and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). Central to the meeting was the discussion of the future of EU-ACP relations in the context of the Lisbon Treaty, with a renewed partnership agreement after 2020 continuing to be uncertain.

In his speech to the Assembly, ACP Secretary General Mohamed Ibn Chambas called upon participants to express their concerns about the uncertain future of ACP-EU relations currently set out in the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) to end in 2020. Chambas also emphasised the need to address current developments of common concern, such as “the impact of the Libyan crises on the Sahel-Sahara zone of West Africa.” The official also warned against the on-going free flows of arms and weapons into Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger that were posing “a real threat to the peace and stability of these fledgling democracies.”

Chambas further announced the decision of the ACP group to favour maintaining the current EU quota system for sugar. Participants also expressed their support for improved policy and management tools to ensure the predictability and stability of the ACP Sugar market in the EU, addressed in post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) proposals.

In parallel to this meeting, a seminar, which took place on 4-5 October and organised by Concord (European NGO confederation for Relief and Development), gathered about 30 Civil Society Organisations (CSO) working on development issues in 20 African, Caribbean and European countries that saw the discussion on the current state of ACP-EU relations and how a future partnership framework should look like. Analysing the content of the CPA and its actual implementation, participants pointed to the increasing dependency of ACP countries towards aid donors, despite the principle of equal partnership as expressed in the CPA.

The participants urged for the mitigation of the impacts of financial dependency, through capacity building to enable social and economic stakeholders to play their part in building sustainable and cooperative societies reaching financial independence. For this to be achieved, the parliaments, social and civil society stakeholders should be actively involved in the programming of the financial instrument.

CSO representatives also pointed to the EU’s ongoing struggle to finalise its Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) with ACP regional groups and the need to revise its trade policies. ACP signatories should therefore “abide to the principles of the CPA to drive a trade policy which is coherent to the objective of poverty eradication and partnership”, if those countries are to advance their trade policies according to their own needs and circumstances.

Sources:

• Secretariat ACP
• Eurostep