The partnership between the European Union and the ACP Group of States is one of the more enduring features of contemporary international economic relations. The ACP began as an association of countries that share particular historical ties with the former European colonial powers and that are bound together to Europe by ties of history, economics and trade. But let’s get it very clear: the ACP does not define itself solely on its relationship with Europe. Indeed, the Georgetown Agreement of 1975 sought to establish an intergovernmental body bound together by a shared sense of South-South solidarity and commitment to the pursuit of equity in world economics and international trade and in the use of dialogue as the primary instrument of international cooperation.
The Cotonou Partnership Agreement linking the ACP with the EU constitutes the largest North-South cooperation system in the world. It is also unique as it is anchored on a formal legal-contractual framework, with provisioning for predictable resources – most of it in form of grants – under the European Development Fund (EDF). Cotonou has brought in its wake a strengthened political role to the ACP Group and an engagement amongst its members to undertake political actions to reinforce their international duties regarding the respect for human rights, to apply democratic principles, and to ensure good governance and transparency. The developmental sustainability posited by the Cotonou Agreement is made an element of the political environment. Hence development aid is now dependent on a stable and democratic political environment rather than vice versa in the clear and unambiguous wording in Article 10 of the Cotonou Agreement.
At the trade level, the European Commission (EC) is finalising Economic Partnership Agreements with the different regions of the ACP Group with a view to synchronising and harmonising trading arrangements compatible with the World Trade Organisation’s provisions on non-preferential trade and to achieve viable region-region agreements. Thus, for the first time ever, the EC is preparing to make direct and binding agreements with segments of the ACP, which may have implications for the cohesion of the ACP Group. While the Caribbean region has already finalised an EPA with the EU, the African and Pacific regions have yet to do so. The West African regional economic community (ECOWAS) has virtually finalised its EPA negotiations while a few others are on course for finalisation.
There are aspects of the EPA that raise serious developmental concerns. While the EU maintains indirect protectionism over key sectors such as agriculture and food, several ACP regions feel they are being coerced into an agreement that may not be in their long-term interest. Even the Caribbean that has signed on to the EPA is yet to reap tangible rewards. Indeed, there has been a great deal of grumbling within Caribbean circles that the EPA is not what it has been made out to be.
The Europeans need to be made to understand that the ACP do have options. Indeed, more trade is taking place between Africa and China, for example, than with the whole of Europe combined. We cannot, of course, ignore the fact of desperate young Africans plunging into the Mediterranean in ramshackle boats in their bid to reach a non-existing Eldorado. It is the curse of geography. It is up to us to do our utmost to help these desperate youths and to dissuade them from taking such foolhardy risks. We must let our young people know that Europe is no paradise whether for jobs or for human dignity. It is therefore of the utmost policy importance that we create conditions that will give our youths hope and opportunities back home.
The collective strength of the ACP Group derives from decades of inter-regional solidarity, international trade negotiations, development finance cooperation, political dialogue, and relations with other international organisations. Indeed, the call for solidarity, greater visibility, relations with other international groups, consolidation of the core business of the ACP Group and empowerment of its institutions has been a constant theme of all of the Summits of ACP Heads of State and Government since the ACP’s inception in 1975.
Within the changing configuration of the New Europe as well as within the ACP itself, there is a new interrogation of the relevance of the Euro-ACP partnership. The urgent appeal for action to confirm the ACP Group’s relevance these days is at the same time an urgent reminder that the global context in which the ACP Group acts has transformed radically since the first Lomé Convention.
Today, the ACP, in my opinion, has come of age. Our countries no longer define their identity exclusively in terms of their partnership with Europe. Rather, they define their identity as being rooted in their sense of shared history, in their commitment to the universal values of democracy and the rule of law, and in that dialogue of civilisations without which humanity’s future is gravely imperilled.
More than anyone, the leadership within the ACP are keenly aware of the new imperatives that globalisation imposes on national systems, in particular the pressures of market discipline and competition. They are also aware that the honeymoon of privileged access to EU markets is over, thanks to the emergence of a WTO rules-based international trading regime. They are also acutely aware of the new uncertainties deriving from the ‘New Europe’, with its changing institutional architecture and geopolitical priorities. They know that these imperatives impose the necessity for choice; a choice that will require diversifying their economic and political linkages and embracing South-South cooperation and the opportunities opened up by the emerging economies of China, India and Brazil.
Equally crucial is the need to reform the workings of the principal institutions and to streamline many of our core functions. It seems evident that the ACP can be most effective when it sets out not to replicate what others are already doing but to concentrate in those core areas in which it enjoys a high comparative advantage. This would require focusing on our core competencies and repositioning the Secretariat as an intergovernmental organisation that does more than the role of mere convener of conferences and meetings.
A Working Group was put together under the leadership of Ambassador Patrick Gomes of Guyana, the newly-elected Secretary-General for the years 2015-2020. The Eminent Persons Group (EPG) chaired by our own former President Olusegun Obasanjo was constituted to help map out alternative scenarios for the ACP. The EPG submitted an interim report to the 100th Council of Ministers in December 2014 and is set to submit its work by May of this year. The interim report notes that the ACP’s 50 years of contractual cooperation with the EU has made it one of the most significant multilateral groupings with a rich cultural and linguistic diversity as well as wide geographic reach across three continents covering nearly a billion people. The pursuit of a new core mandate and its enhanced capability to deliver on that mandate will constitute an important asset for leverage in a crowded development marketplace of complimenting and sometimes competing organisations and scarce resources.
The EPG also believes that, beyond multilateral and bilateral cooperation, the full involvement of the private sector, including the ACP Diaspora and network of experts, will have to be integrated into the work of the Group. Implementation modalities will take into account the need for accountability to stakeholders for resource use while a restructured Secretariat will provide the basis for better functionality and efficiency. This will also necessitate a reorientation of the status of the ACP Group to a fully-fledged international organisation with the appropriate legal, diplomatic and political authority at international level built on the acquis of the current institutional set-up.
For the ACP, we believe that the future is what we make of it. The ACP-EU partnership is the best model there is for the contractual approach to world development based on interdependence, dialogue and mutually-shared responsibilities. But there are aspects that have not worked very well. The EDF has been strong on the public sector but considerably weak in the area of private sector development. And it is also a fact that old attitudes die hard. Rightly or wrongly, we get the impression that the European mindset is tending to view the ACP as a burden rather than an opportunity. We hope that that view is a misperception.
We do acknowledge the fact that the world has changed. Europe itself has undergone a profound transformation, with a clearly changing set of geopolitical priorities. We believe that Europe will not be Europe if it abandoned its political and moral obligations – ideals that have been inherent in her civilizational role in the past. At the same time, it goes without saying that the nations of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific must take full responsibility for their own future. They have to strengthen the ACP as an intergovernmental body by reforming the Secretariat and the workings of the Principal Organs while streamlining and refocusing the core mandate of the organisation.
There has to be focus on critical regional and global public goods; leveraging on those acquis that have defined the value of their privileged partnership with Europe, while building new alliances with the emerging economic powers of the South. They must also redefine their identity outside the exclusive relationship with the EU while looking beyond aid and forging those bold new partnerships that will accelerate their progress into the ranks of prosperous democracies. Where there is a will, there will always be a way.
Obadiah Mailafia
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