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WHAT FUTURE FOR THE ACP GROUP IN THE POST-COTONOU AGREEMENT?
Working Paper n° 1, August 2014
a- The evolving dynamics in the world of geopolitics reinforce the relevance of the question of the future of the Cotonou Agreement and the ACP Group. After the last Africa-EU summit of April 2014 - which adopted a new roadmap with the objective to revitalize the Joint Africa/Europe Strategy (JAES) on the basis of the respect of mutual interests of the two continents, and with the priority to trade and not to Aid, and after the recent US-Africa Leader’s Summit (August 2014) – which key purpose was to further strengthen ties with Africa and advance the US administration’s focus on trade and investment, security, and democracy – it becomes very urgent for Africa and Europe to improve the reflex ion on a global cooperation policy framework and particularly on the future of the ACP Group in the post-Cotonou agreement.
b- After the last Africa-EU Summit, It is already clear that the JAES without a legal value does not constitute a new policy framework unlikely to govern and change the basis of political relations and cooperation between Africa and Europe. The issue of establishing a new legal and political framework as well as the introduction of new instruments of cooperation necessary to support the Africa-Europe partnership on new bases, is arising and will arise with the renegotiation of the post- Cotonou Agreement with the ACP beyond 2020 - which is the date of the expiration of the Cotonou Agreement - and with the pressure of socio-economic agendas of each party.
c- The forthcoming five-year revision of Cotonou Agreement will certainly give some indications as to the future of ACP-EU relations beyond 2020. It is therefore not too early for African actors to open the debate on the future of the ACP beyond the EU. The outcome of this debate will inevitably also have an impact on the future of the ACP Group beyond 2020. Several reflex ions has been engaged for this purpose in various formal and informal spaces. An Ambassadorial Working Group on Future perspectives was established in November 2010. Several consultations have been held with various actors and stakeholders, mainly at the level of the ACP and EU institutions in Brussels. With the support of the UNDP, the ACP Secretariat published a interesting study by Prof. Myriam Van Reisen in 2012 on Future Perspectives of the ACP Group which was mainly based on consultations with Brussels based ACP actors. In December 2012 the 7th ACP Heads of State and Government Meeting in Malabo-Equatorial Guinea adopted the Sipopo declaration on the future of the ACP Group. In the past two years the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly also organised regular sessions on the future of the ACP-EU cooperation in its six monthly meetings. In March 2013 an ACP Eminent Persons Group (EPG) was launched to reflect on the future of the ACP Group. The Group which is led by former President of Nigeria Chief Olusegun Obasanjo consists of 14 men and women, including Fiji’s former Foreign Affairs Minister, Kaliopate Tavola and former Samoan Financial Secretary, Kolone Vaai on behalf of the Pacific region. The EPG hosted a series of regional talks in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to gather views on the future outlooks of the ACP Group and its relations with the European Union. Two quick observations here: these initiatives are not generaly the product of a home grown decision of African countries, who do not speak for the rest with one voice; and the future of the ACP group emerges in question marks. The purpose of this paper is to summarize African reflexions on this critical issue.

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The challenges for the ACP Group
d - The ACP Group is confronted with fundamental challenges at the global, European and at ACP levels.
 At Global level, the rapid rise of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and other emerging economies is having a growing impact on the ACP Group and the current state of ACP-EU relations. While the EU remains the most important trading partner of the ACP countries, the share of the emerging countries in terms of investment and trade has grown spectacularly in recent years. The BRICS are assuming an increasingly important role in global issues, and they are perceived as having a positive vision of development potential in several parts of the ACP. For many ACP governments, the emerging economies also provide a welcome alternative to the dominant weight of Europe as a former colonial power. Obama’s strategic shift from African aid to African trade further increases the pressure on European countries and offers potential new market opportunities for Africa. It is clear that, in the future, the EU will have to deal with reduced influence at the global level and in several parts of the ACP.
 In the EU, itself, perspectives on the partnership with the ACP as a group are quite mixed. The different enlargement rounds have fundamentally changed the EU’s collective attitude towards the ACP Group as a post-colonial concept. Most EU 12 members look East rather than South and increasingly question why more financial resources are not spent in the wider neighbourhood of the EU rather than in the South. The ACP-EU partnership seems to have lost considerable influence, mainly in terms of its political relevance. Substantive issues in the areas of peace and security, the fight against terrorism and organized crime and climate change are largely dealt with outside the ACP-EU framework. Many EU ministers no longer take the time and trouble to attend the annual Joint ACP-EU Ministerial Council meetings. These signs of European low interest seem to be aggravated by an increasing lack of high- level ACP interest in their own group. In comparison to the First ACP Heads of State in Libreville in 1997, very few African, Caribbean and Pacific heads of state showed up at the most recent ACP summits in Khartoum (2006) and Accra (2008). In spite of institutional problems, the pan-African organizations—the African Union (AU)—or regional organizations (e.g., ECOWAS, COMESA, EAC, SADC,) appear to have gained more legitimacy and credibility in dealing with continental and regional political and security issues. In recent years, some controversies have given rise to increasing frustration between the ACP and the EU, such as the slow and difficult negotiating process around the economic partnership agreements (EPAs), the International Criminal Court and the opposition of some ACP regions to the EU’s wish to enhance observer status at the UN General Assembly. The lack of reference to the ACP Group in the Lisbon Treaty and the less prominent place of the ACP in the internal DEVCO and EEAS institutional framework are also signs that the EU is losing its interest in the ACP as a group. The decision to go beyond Aid, adopted in the roadmap of the last Africa-EU Summit, is another challenge for the ACP Group and raises the issue of its identity.

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 The African partners of the ACP Group seem to be increasingly worried over the way the EU is treating them. On one hand, as the European Commission has begun to prepare a new cooperation agreement with the ACP countries for the next 20 years (legislated to take effect in 2020) and while the joint strategy foresee the gradual adaptation of the cooperation instruments - in order to include the African Union as a full region in the European cooperation, there is a need to redefine the basis of a cooperation agreement for the full participation of the African Union as a stakeholder, which will facilitate Africa to speak with one voice. In this perspective, the African Union must participate in the negotiation of the next post-Cotonou Agreement. An essential dimension of this negotiation will be indeed the question of the recognition of the regions/continents (that is to say, Africa, Caribbean Pacific) as specific political entities in the cooperation agreement. The issue of integration of the African Union in the future cooperation, as representative of the whole continent, must therefore be a major element of the political dialogue between Africa and Europe. On the other hand, the ACP-EU Partnership rests on weak political foundations on both sides. Long- standing controversial issues such as the EPA negotiations have done more harm than good to the reputation of the EU in different parts of the ACP – particularly in Africa. While, in official declarations, the EU expresses a strong commitment to respect the contractual obligations of the Cotonou Agreement until the 2020 expiry date, many ACP interlocutors remain quite suspicious about the future intentions of the EU. Although time has been relatively short, the EEAS and its political leadership seem to face major constraints in showing its potential for delivering a more effective, coherent and credible EU foreign policy. In practice, there appear to be major contradictions between the EEAS, which is responsible for directing Europe’s overall foreign policy, and DEVCO, which is in charge of pursuing development objectives. Europe continues to struggle with reconciling its strategic interests with its value-driven agenda. This has not gone unnoticed in several ACP countries and regions, which are becoming increasingly frustrated with instances of the EU’s use of “double standards” in the treatment of different ACP states and leaders. More than halfway through the lifetime of Cotonou, the overall impression exists that there is a strong decline in common interests and trust between both parties. The ACP-EU Partnership is at a turning point and clear choices will have to be made in the coming years between options to continue as “business as usual”, to terminate or to revitalize this partnership.
How to rethink the partnership of the ACP Group?
e - The question for Africa on the ACP group is how to rethink its partnerships and its role. It is not an exceptional exercise: all major regional and inter-regional groupings in the world have done it in the past five years. The premise of this reflection is always based on a clear and precise definition of common strategic objectives of the members of the group. For Africa, the major issue is now to achieve the socio-economic transformation and the regional integration agenda of the Continent in an environment of peace and security within the framework of the Agenda 2063. The Caribbean and Pacific countries have other priorities which are quite different than the one of Africa. On this basis, different options can be envisaged to help the Group to move out from traditional ACP-EU ‘face-à-

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face’. The ACP Ambassadorial Working Group established in November 2010 has explored some of them during its different meetings.
f- The first option is that the ACP should naturally engage with new strategic global partners like the BRICs, Japan, Korea, Turkey and USA. Obviously, this would also give more bargaining power to the ACP vis-à-vis the EU. In addition, the ACP would send a strong message to the EU and the rest of the world that the Group should be taken seriously. However, the potential for this scenario looks rather grim because of the lack of internal coherence in the ACP. The question can also be raised as to whether emerging players such as Brazil, India or China would be interested in engaging with the ACP as a group.
g- The second option is that the ACP Group should open up to new members. This could be done by including the North African, Asian and/or South American countries. However, an ACP Group that includes the whole of Africa by taking the stronger economies of North Africa on board would raise the question of how the ACP would differ from the AU and what its specific value-added would be vis-à-vis the AU. Some might argue that the AU would continue to play a more political role while the ACP could play a lead role in the economic and trade spheres. This division of roles would not be easy to put into practice as the AU also has a political mandate on African economic and trade matters. The question could also be raised as to what the incentives would be for the North African countries to join the ACP, given their own particular relationship with the EU through the Neighborhood Policy and the recently developed stronger EU support package. On another hand, expanding ACP membership to include Asian and/or South American countries would make it the home of most (if not all) non-G-20 developing countries. The feasibility of this scenario is also questionable given the risk of potential duplication of roles with similar groupings in multilateral contexts, such as the G77 in the United Nations. Further, how could an enlarged ACP Group ensure more cohesiveness if it is already difficult to ensure coherence among the current ACP member countries? Finally, the most difficult question might be what incentives are there for Asian and South African countries to join the ACP?
Which role for the ACP Group in the post-Cotonou Agreement
h- Looking beyond the quest of new partnerships, the main problem for Africa is to rethink the role of the ACP Group. In that respect, three options can be explored.
i- In the first one, the ACP must be more strategic in identifying clearly where the members of the Group could join forces in international fora on global issues of common concern like industrialization, youth employment, fight against illicit financial flows, governance of natural resources, climate change, promotion of human security,… Theoretically, if there was a coherent positioning, an ACP Group renewed could be a major force in the UN and other multilateral organizations and fora. While many small ACP states are quite insignificant in economic terms, they could use this interesting diplomatic capital to play a more prominent political role at the global level.

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j- The ACP Group could also become an “umbrella” for the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions. In this scenario, the particular needs and interests of each of the various regions could be pursued while issues that are common to all ACP regions could be dealt with at the overall ACP level. It is quite obvious that this scenario could only become relevant if intra-ACP and South-South economic cooperation would be significantly strengthened and if ACP institutions can clearly demonstrate their value-added. k-- Finally, there is one option which consists in turning the ACP into a linguistic and knowledge hub or a networking type of organization among countries that share a common history and similarities in their path to development in a globalized world. Such a model could be based on the example of the Commonwealth or the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF). However, here, too, questions could be raised as to whether there is a real need for such another institution at this moment. Obviously, such an option would also require “drivers” within the ACP Group that could provide leadership and (financial) support to such an initiative.
l- In fact, It is up to the Africans ACP leadership and actors to contribute to the definition of the future of their partnerships and its role as a Group. This raises fundamental questions that should be addressed up front and on which we want to conclude: is there a real ownership of the ACP Group for Africa? Can ACP Group survive without EU funding? Do all the Africans ACP members consider that the Group is still relevant and are they willing to pay for it? What is the added value of the Group? Or Is it just a channel for aid distribution? The question of geopolitical repositioning of the ACP group is far from simple. That is precisely the reason why we need to reflect on it collectively and strategically.