Article 3 – Achieving the objectives of this Agreement The interim EPA between the EU and the ACP-Pacific countries was signed by Papua New Guinea in July 2009 and by Fiji in December 2009. Papua New Guinea ratified it in May 2011. In July 2014, Fiji decided to start the provisional application of the agreement. Of the 14 Pacific countries, Papua New Guinea and Fiji account for the largest share of EU-Pacific trade. These objectives and the international commitments of the Parties feed into all development strategies and are addressed through an integrated approach that simultaneously takes into account the political, economic, social, cultural and environmental aspects of development. The partnership provides a coherent framework to support the development strategies adopted by each ACP country. 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. 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. 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 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. 3. The dialogue shall cover all the objectives set out in this Agreement and all matters of common, general, regional or subregional interest. Through dialogue, the parties contribute to peace, security and stability and promote a stable and democratic political environment. It covers cooperation strategies as well as global and sectoral policies, including the environment, gender equality, migration and cultural heritage issues. The future agreement is expected to cover priority areas such as: 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.
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 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. The Council gives the Commission the mandate to negotiate these agreements and must sign the final agreement as soon as it is concluded. After the WTO dispute, the EU had until 2007 to incorporate the Lomé Conventions into WTO rules. The EU Green Paper identified several options for post-2000 trade agreements, including: (i) single versus multiple trade agreements; (ii) differentiated trade agreements from generalised trade agreements; (iii) reciprocal and non-reciprocal trade agreements; and (iv) contractual (ensuring long-term security, bilateral or multilateral) as opposed to unilateral (at the EU`s POLITICAL discretion). (i) Agreements at regional level would mean that EPAs would contribute to strengthening regional integration, facilitate the entry of ACP economies into the world economy and boost trade and investment. From the EU`s perspective, the EU remains an important (and in some cases) more important trading partner of the ACP regional economic communities (see Figure 1 below).
The Contracting Parties, in so far as they are concerned by this Agreement, shall take all appropriate general or specific measures to ensure compliance with the obligations arising from this Agreement and to facilitate the achievement of its objectives. They shall refrain from any measure likely to jeopardise those objectives. The EU will work towards a fundamentally revised agreement with a common basis at ACP level, in conjunction with three tailor-made regional partnerships for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. AFN development cooperation shall be adapted to the individual circumstances and development needs of each ACP Member. This will be achieved through the implementation of mutually agreed country/region strategy papers and national indicative programmes giving priority to cooperation activities and programmes within the ACP States. Programming aims to ensure that EU development assistance is based on the beneficiary country`s own development objectives and strategies, while taking into account shared ownership, mutual responsibility and alignment with the ACP country that is happy to be a beneficiary. 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. This led to the Yaoundé Agreements of 1963 and 1969, which formed the basis for cooperation between the Newly Independent African States and the EEC. The Yaoundé Agreements were based on the ultimate objective of the Treaty of Rome to increase trade and gave the EEC better access to SSUA resources and markets. In comparison, many AASM countries have remained overly dependent on EU markets and have continued to focus on the export of raw materials and raw materials.
The Yaoundé accords have also been criticized for allowing France`s political and economic dominance in French-speaking Africa, which continues to this day. Nevertheless, the agreements provided both assistance and commercial access to the EU market on a reciprocal basis. 4. The dialogue shall focus, inter alia, on specific political issues of mutual interest or general importance for the achievement of the objectives of this Agreement, such as arms trafficking, excessive military expenditure, drugs and organised crime or ethnic, religious or racial discrimination. The dialogue also includes a regular assessment of developments in accordance with human rights, democratic principles, the rule of law and good governance. Signed in June 2000, the PCA is a treaty between the European Union (EU) and 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Its main objectives are the fight against poverty, sustainable development and the economic integration of the ACP countries into the world economy through development cooperation, political cooperation and economic and trade cooperation. The PCA has a strong mandate for political dialogue, with an emphasis on promoting mutual understanding, facilitating consultations and strengthening cooperation between the parties. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement provides for flexible discussions at the national, regional or continental level, within or outside the institutional framework, and includes the participation of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly, central government agencies and civil society organizations. The current Comprehensive Peace Agreement expires in February 2020 and negotiations on a successor agreement are due to start in September 2018, with the aim of aligning the partnership with framework conditions such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The negotiations will take place against the backdrop of changing geopolitics and global alliances that cast a shadow over the integrity of the AKP group.
REAFFIRMING its determination to work together to achieve the goals of poverty eradication, sustainable development and the gradual integration of ACP countries into the global economy, at a meeting of the AU Executive Council in March this year, the AU expressed its wish to adopt a new cooperation agreement on the future of AU-EU relations with the EU after 2020 outside the ACP context. The ACP Parliamentary Assembly`s statement responded with a call for solidarity and “the will not to adopt a position that fragments the ACP group and threatens the unity enshrined in the values of the ACP group”. Probably the most radical change introduced by the Cotonou Agreement concerns trade cooperation. Since the first Lomé Convention in 1975, the EU has not granted reciprocal trade preferences to ACP countries. However, under the Cotonou Agreement, this system has been replaced by the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), a new regime that entered into force in 2008. This new regime provides for reciprocal trade agreements, which means that the EU will not only grant duty-free access to its markets to ACP exports, but ACP countries will also grant EU exports duty-free access to their own markets. .