Caught Between the ACP and the AU: The European Union and Africa in the Post-Cotonou Partnership Agreement

Abstract: In view of the expiration of the Cotonou Agreement, which has governed relations between the European Union (EU) and a cluster of 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP) since 2000, on 30 May 2018 the ACP Council of Ministers adopted a mandate for a renewed partnership with the EU. The logic underpinning the ACP negotiating mandate is that of introducing only some adjustments to the EU-ACP cooperation model, leaving unresolved the quest to tailor any future agreement to regional specificities and to better involve regional organisations. The adoption of the ACP mandate caught many by surprise, not least because on 19 March 2018, the African Union (AU) had adopted a decision indicating that it would seek to engage in a continent-to-continent cooperation agreement with the European Union, outside the ACP-EU framework, in which its aspirations for a partnership between equals could be finally met. This article seeks to shed some insights into the two processes, which at best sent conflicting messages about the actual preferences of African states. Clearly, it is argued here, the ACP Group (particularly the Secretariat and its Committee of Ambassadors in Brussels) and the African Union (particularly the Commission and its Permanent Representative Committee in Addis Ababa) engaged in a territorial battle for survival and power, alongside a different ‘ideological’ view on how Africa should engage with the European Union. Interestingly, the European Union may have played a role, not necessarily intentionally, in these processes: initially, it protected the ACP Group, particularly from the accusation of it being a relic of the past; eventually, it was seen as a solution to rescue the AU, ensuring it a more prominent role in any future agreement than was foreseen in the ACP negotiating mandate.