The View from Europe
By David Jessop
 
Finding a new role for the ACP
 
Has the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of nations (the ACP) a future beyond 
2020, the date that the Cotonou Convention expires? 

 
Judging from the responses to this and related questions at a recent European 
Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM) conference in Maastricht, 
finding a consensus may be far from easy.
 
At the start of the month ECDPM brought together seventy ACP and EU participants 
from a wide range of government, public and private entities to initiate a 
debate that has significant implications for future global relationships.
 
The meeting, held to celebrate the development think tank’s twenty fifth 
anniversary, illustrated  a clear difference of opinion between many of those 
who came from EU Member States and those who were from, or were associated with 
ACP nations.  Also of note, was a presentation by a part the European Commission 
offering a range of options that seemed designed to sustain a structured 
bureaucratic inter-relationship and another from China that provided fresh air 
in a debate that at times struggled to identify what was special about the ACP. 

 
By the end of the meeting there seemed to be an informal recognition that before 
many of the challenging questions posed by the conference organisers could be 
considered, much was up to the ACP and its regions to determine first the nature 
and extent of its future role. There was also a sense that the body could not 
continue as it was. It would need to be able to finance itself rather than have 
its moral integrity weakened by continuing EU support, and would have to make 
itself relevant and proactive by developing the technical capacity to address 
the new issues that face the world such as climate change, food and energy 
security, and migration. 

 
Europe was still important but there was a need for the ACP to recognise the way 
the world had changed. All of the ACP’s regions needed to enquire beyond 
Government whether the disparate grouping still had relevance in a multipolar 
world in which relationships overlap. There was now a case for considering 
whether greater value might lie in establishing new development, investment, 
institutional and political arrangements with neighbours in the regions in which 
ACP countries were located or in establishing development agreements with China, 
India, Brazil and South Africa (the BRICS). 

 
As for Europe, there was a sense that at the level of the Member States, most 
had moved on. The Lisbon Treaty, the move to budgetisation, the increased role 
of the European Parliament in decision making had all changed thinking. 
Moreover, the absence of understanding amongst electorates of the reasons for 
sustaining a privileged relationship with former colonies at the same time as 
there were rising domestic concerns about austerity and migration had changed 
the political dynamics in the relationship. As a consequence a Europe of 27 
states was looking elsewhere in a hard headed way, was increasingly distracted 
by its own problems and was seeking different strategic relationships. Why 
should the ACP have any greater significance than Central America, one 
participant asked in private?
 
This was not, speakers suggested, to imply that Africa in particular did not 
matter, but the utility of a single ACP group from a European perspective now 
had much less relevance or attraction. The group needed convincingly to identify 
new issues, create new and viable political structures and demonstrate that it 
had the ability to change. 

 
For its part the European Commission suggested the possibility of four 
alternative scenarios: the ACP relationship continuing as it is; separate 
regional agreements with the component parts of the group; separate agreements 
as pillars under a slimmer ACP umbrella; and the opening up or enlargement of 
the ACP configuration. However, what was far from clear was how representative 
this view was of the whole Commission when some of the important new players in 
the process were not present at the meeting. 

 
China’s participation in the debate was particularly interesting, suggesting 
that from its perspective it saw little utility in the ACP group as a whole, but 
a real opportunity to develop trilateral arrangements with Africa and the EU to 
find a middle way to activate the goal of ‘common prosperity’. 

 
What was clear from the conference was that any solution had to lie not just 
with the institutions of the ACP, but perhaps more importantly with the regions 
that make up the grouping, through a rigorous analysis involving political and 
economic and frankness about whether the ACP had the ability to deliver better 
what other groupings were now doing. The organisation had a past but that was 
not enough. It needed youth, vigour and a raison d’être rather than the language 
of solidarity and process, no matter how important the ACP’s shared history and 
experience had been. 

 
Some significant minds within the ACP are now reflecting on these issues and 
will in due course come forward with a report for discussion. 

 
What emerged in Maastricht was a series of vignettes indicating quite how 
difficult it will be to achieve consensus on a way forwards. For the ACP to have 
a future it will need not just to find a clear purpose but will need to do so in 
the next five years if it is to be able to successfully establish in a likely 
negotiating period between 2015 and 2020 a reason why Europe should want another 
Treaty with a limited group of nations largely based on European colonisation. 

 
In many respects the ACP was a child of the cold war, reflecting a practical 
response to the desire of the West to ensure that the future development and 
political orientation of its existing and former colonies.  However since 1957 
the partnership though the Yaoundé and Lomé Conventions has metamorphosed and 
been pulled apart by the EPA process. 

 
While some argue that the current Treaty, Cotonou, is the only formal European 
model for managing a development relationship and should be valued, it is not 
clear yet whether there is enough political will across the ACP or in Europe to 
bring about change in a manner that would be attractive to both.
 
Emotional solidarity between the ACP is still strong but the facts suggest that 
the grouping may have a tenuous grip on the future if it cannot identify and 
sustain a clear purpose.
 
David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at 
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Previous columns can be found at www.caribbean-council.org
July 8th , 2011