A new ac­cord will be of­fi­cial­ly signed in “the com­ing months” by the Eu­ro­pean Union and the 79-mem­ber Or­gan­i­sa­tion of African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic States (OACPS), it has been of­fi­cial­ly an­nounced.

The Coun­cil of the Eu­ro­pean Union last week gave the green­light to the new part­ner­ship agree­ment that will re­place the Coto­nou agree­ment that was signed in 2000 and re­gard­ed as the back­bone of the part­ner­ship be­tween the EU and the OACPS, while con­tribut­ing to the erad­i­ca­tion of pover­ty, sup­port­ing the sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic, cul­tur­al and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of the part­ner coun­tries as well help­ing with the pro­gres­sive in­te­gra­tion of their re­spec­tive economies in­to the world econ­o­my.

The EU Coun­cil said that the pro­vi­sion­al ap­pli­ca­tion of the new ac­cord, which would al­so be for 20 years, will start on the first day of the sec­ond month af­ter the sig­na­ture.

The new deal cov­ers a wide range of ar­eas, from sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment and growth, to hu­man rights and peace and se­cu­ri­ty.

“The EU and the OACPS rep­re­sent over 1.5 bil­lion peo­ple and more than half of the seats at the Unit­ed Na­tions. With this new agree­ment, we will be bet­ter equipped to ad­dress emerg­ing needs and glob­al chal­lenges, such as cli­mate change, ocean gov­er­nance, mi­gra­tion, health, peace and se­cu­ri­ty,” said Josep Bor­rell, High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Af­fairs and Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy in the EU Coun­cil.

The EU said that this new agree­ment aims to strength­en the ca­pac­i­ty of the par­ties to ad­dress glob­al chal­lenges to­geth­er, in­clud­ing through co­op­er­a­tion in in­ter­na­tion­al fo­ra, in a mod­ernised frame­work.

It lays down com­mon prin­ci­ples and cov­ers sev­er­al pri­or­i­ty ar­eas in­clud­ing hu­man rights, democ­ra­cy and gov­er­nance, peace and se­cu­ri­ty, hu­man and so­cial de­vel­op­ment, in­clu­sive sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and de­vel­op­ment as well as en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty and cli­mate change mi­gra­tion and mo­bil­i­ty.

The EU said that the agree­ment in­cludes a com­mon foun­da­tion, which ap­plies to all par­ties, com­bined with three re­gion­al pro­to­cols for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pa­cif­ic (ACP) with a fo­cus on the re­gions’ spe­cif­ic needs.

The ACP-EU part­ner­ship is one of the old­est and most com­pre­hen­sive frame­works for co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the EU and third coun­tries.

The post-Coto­nou ne­go­ti­a­tions start­ed in Sep­tem­ber 2018 in the mar­gins of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in New York, with the aim to agree on a new, mod­ernised treaty to suc­ceed the Coto­nou Agree­ment.

The chief ne­go­tia­tors reached a po­lit­i­cal agree­ment on the text of the new agree­ment in De­cem­ber 2020.

In June, the co-pres­i­dents of the ACP-EU Joint Par­lia­men­tary As­sem­bly, Car­los Zor­rin­ho of Por­tu­gal and Ana Ri­ta Sit­hole of Mozam­bique, called for an ex­pe­di­tious sign­ing of the post-Coto­nou agree­ment af­ter an agree­ment had been reached to ex­tend the ex­ist­ing Coto­nou Agree­ment for an ad­di­tion­al four months so as to avoid a le­gal vac­u­um from Ju­ly 1.

They said then that giv­en the cur­rent glob­al in­sta­bil­i­ty, the Post-Coto­nou Agree­ment rep­re­sents a bea­con of sta­bil­i­ty and pro­gres­sive think­ing for the OACPS-EU part­ner­ship, mak­ing sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to glob­al gov­er­nance.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Jul 23, CMC –

CMC/pr/ir/2023