This document argues that, although there is a high degree of continuity on paper between the ACP-EU Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA) and the new Agreement, the partnership relationship underlying it has been irrevocably altered, notably by the abandonment of the dedicated European Extrabudgetary Development Fund. While the content of the post-Cotonou agreement has lost its relevance – trade and aid, which have long been the vital element of the partnership, have been largely removed from the partnership – its institutional framework, with an ACP-EU foundation and three regional protocols, risks becoming even more difficult by replicating common institutions at regional level. Negotiations on the agreement lasted 2.5 years and were concluded with the chief negotiators, the Commissioner for International Partnerships, Jutta Urpilainen, and the Togolese Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Dusse, who initialled the document. The EU has negotiated a series of Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the 79 ACP countries. These agreements aim to create a common partnership on trade and development supported by development support. The application of the Cotonou Agreement has been extended until December 2020. The agreement was originally due to expire in February 2020, but as negotiations on the future agreement are still ongoing, this has been postponed until the end of the year. It is the most comprehensive partnership agreement between developing countries and the EU, covering the EU`s relations with 79 countries, including 48 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The European Union (EU) and the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) are close to concluding and signing a new Partnership Agreement. Chief negotiators from OACPS and the EU officially initialled the new agreement on 15 April, and there is hope that the new agreement will be signed by all parties in Samoa by the end of 2021. In Eastern and Southern Africa, Mauritius, Seychelles, Zimbabwe and Madagascar signed an EPA in 2009.

The Agreement has been provisionally applied since 14 May 2012. Migration and mobility play an important role in the agreement. A chapter on this subject can be found in the Joint Foundation and in the Regional Protocol for Africa. In the relevant chapter of the Joint Foundation, the articles set out the obligations related to legal migration and mobility; migration and development; irregular migration; Return and readmission as well as protection and asylum. The new Partnership Agreement between the European Union (EU) and the members of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), which replaces the Cotonou Agreement, has been approved and published. The agreement sets the framework for political and economic cooperation between the two parties for the next twenty years. The agreement contains a “common basis” that identifies strategic areas of intervention on which both sides intend to work. These include human rights, democracy and governance in human-centred and rights-based societies, (ii) peace and security, (iii) human and social development, (iv) environmental sustainability and climate change, (v) sustainable and inclusive economic growth and development, and (vi) migration and mobility. It also includes three regional protocols for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, which focus on specific issues and have their own governance structure to monitor relations between the EU and the region concerned. In July 2014, 16 West African States, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) concluded an agreement with the EU.

The signing process is currently underway. Also in July 2014, negotiations with the countries of the Southern African Development Community were successfully concluded. The agreement was signed on 10 June 2016 in Kasane, Botswana. It entered into provisional application on 10 October 2016. The EU finances most of its development programmes for ACP partner countries through the European Development Fund (EDF). These appropriations are not part of the general budget of the EU. They shall be the subject of an internal agreement between the Member States meeting within the Council. The European Union (EU) and the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS – formerly known as the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States) have governed their relations through a series of partnership agreements since 1975. The future agreement should cover priority areas, such as: our current relations with acp countries are governed by the ACP-EU Partnership Agreement (2000), also known as the Cotonou Agreement, which brings together more than 100 partner countries and around 1.5 billion people.

It is the most comprehensive Partnership Agreement ever signed between the EU and third countries. The comprehensive approach to migration is focused on readmission. In addition to the specific provisions of the Joint Foundation and the Regional Protocols, an annex on return and readmission procedures provides further details on how cooperation on readmission should take place. It contains detailed provisions on the readmission of persons without a valid travel document, the means of transfer for return, the return of unaccompanied children and specifies that bilateral agreements may be concluded between EU Member States and OACPS. It also states that such bilateral agreements should provide for shorter periods of time to reply to the State to which a readmission request is addressed and that such agreements could also include the readmission of third-country nationals. In addition, the Africa-Specific Protocol provides for the possibility for a Party to the Agreement to take “proportionate measures” if another Party fails to meet the deadline for responding to a readmission request. The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly is an advisory body composed equally of representatives of the EU and ACP countries. The Assembly promotes democratic processes and facilitates better understanding between the peoples of the EU and those of the ACP countries. ACP-EU development and partnership issues, including Economic Partnership Agreements, will also be addressed. In order to adapt to new challenges, the agreement was revised in 2005 and 2010 to focus more on: our cooperation with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has been in place for a long time and has deepened over time, as evidenced by the successive ACP-EU Partnership Agreements signed in the years following the first Lomé Convention (1975). Over the past two years, negotiators have been working on an agreement on the successor to the 2000 Cotonou Partnership Agreement, which now officially expires in November 2021. The 4.

In December 2020, OACPS Chief Negotiator Robert Dussey and EU Chief Negotiator Jutta Urpilainen announced a new partnership agreement. The INTERIM EPA between the EU and the Pacific ACP countries was signed by Papua New Guinea in July 2009 and by Fiji in December 2009. .