14-12-2009 The Second Revision of the Cotonou Agreement

The Cotonou Agreement which was signed in June 2000, between the African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) Countries (most of them former colonies of Europe) introduced some radical changes in the past ACP-EU cooperation. The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) were one of those changes. Within these partnership agreements there are incoherencies with the EU development policy that are harming the development process of third countries (see case study). Article 95 of the Agreements states that the agreements itself needs to be reviewed every five years. Therefore the European institutions, including the parliament have been giving their opinions on the matter. Member of the European Parliament (MEP), Eva Joly, chairwoman of the Development Committee (DEVE), was responsible for drafting the report titled "the second revision of the Partnership Agreement ACP-EU."

DEVE adopted the report in December last year. This report is an excellent effort to make EU policy more coherent for development. Joly (Greens/EFA), in name of the DEVE Committee "considers that policy coherence for development, particularly between policies on trade, development, agriculture and fisheries, should be a guiding principle of EU development cooperation and must be explicitly addressed in the revised agreement" (clause 4 of the draft report). She discusses many of the case studies including incoherencies concerning EPAs, agricultural subsidies, fisheries and migration issues. She emphasizes the harmful effects of EU agricultural subsidies on agricultural development and food security in developing countries for example. Furthermore she calls on the European Commission and ACP governments to include the fights against tax evasion and avoidance in the Cotonou Agreement; a creation of a binding mechanism which forces trans-national corporations to comply with tax laws. Finally within the report she emphasises on a more participatory decision making approach, especially including the parliaments on both sides of the Agreement. For her efforts for policy coherence for development, the fair politics team recognized her as a fair politician.

The discussion of Jolys draft report within the DEVE committee, led to the adoption of amendments, which mostly worked to the favour of fair politics. Asa Westlund (S&D), noted that ACP countries must be regarded as equal negotiating partners of the EU, in order to establish a true partnership agreement. Frank Vanhecke (NI), a non attached member of parliament, backed up Jolys comments about migration by adding the consideration that the blue card system encourages and aggravates brain drain. Most importantly concerning PCD in this report is the highlighting of article 12 of the Cotonou Agreement. This article enshrines PCD and states that ACP countries have the right to consult any incoherence. Article 12 was only recently used for the first time, and the procedures are not transparent, whereas ACP countries must be stimulated to make use of this article. Louis Michel (ALDE) notes that the Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) must make better use of article 12. Patrice Tirolien and Harlem Desir (S&D) furthermore give concrete suggestions on how to improve the implementation of article 12. For their contribution to policy coherence for development we recognize Westlund, Vanhecke, Michel, Tirolien and Desir as fair politicians.

In reaction to the report of the DEVE Committee the INTA Committee adopted an opinion. Vital Moreira (S&D) as rapporteur of the opinion, welcomes more collaboration and synergies between different levels and parts of the EU and ACP institutions. He notes that new provisions like the Aid for Trade provision needs to be included in the Agreement as well. Although Moreira this time made no reference to policy coherence and effort to make politics more fair, the amendments on the INTA Opinion were relevant. Kader Arif and Harlem Desir (S&D) note that "new provisions need to be added in new areas, such as Aid for Trade in order to guarantee the development dimension in the trade areas of that Agreement." Yannick Jadot (Greens/EFA), also makes reference to migration and food security issues and "considers that the second revision should tackle the issue of the new EPA institutions and ensure coherence with the Cotonou framework." Unfortunately, the Jadots amendments did not get through to the final opinion. Fair Politics appreciates the efforts of Arif, Desir and Jadot to make the INTA opinion more effective towards PCD.

DEVE Report on the second revision of the Partnership Agreement ACP-EC. Read here.
INTA Opinion on the second revision of the Partnership Agreement ACP-EC. Read here.

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