EU, ACP States ink new deal to impact over 1.5 bn people

The new partnership between the European Union and the Organization of African, Caribbean and Pacific States has been endorsed by the Council of Ministers of the member countries.

It’s an important step towards the agreement concluded on December 3 in Brussels.

The so-called Post-Cotonou agreement involves the 27 EU states and the 79 ACP nations, 48 from sub-Saharan Africa, 16 from the Caribbean and 15 from the Pacific Ocean.

The partnership focuses on political, development and trade and will impact the lives of over 1.5 billion people. In an exclusive interview with Euronews, the head of Angolan diplomacy, Téte António, underlined one of the important points of the agreement.

‘’What we also retain about the agreement are the regional partnerships, therefore specific regional partnerships, to take into account the reality of each region. As in the case of the African continent, we also have multilateral agreements among ourselves, and this agreement practically creates conditions for competitiveness within the region itself and at the multilateral level. The agreement comes at an opportune moment, given that on 1 January the African Continental Free Trade Area will begin’’, António said.

Angola will assume the presidency of the Organization in 2022. Secretary General, Georges Chikoti, mentioned two of the items that will surely be on the agenda.

‘’In 2022 we will not be far away from the Covid-19 pandemic, I think it will still be an issue on which work can be done, we will probably have concluded the post-Cotonou agreement by then, and it will be the basic agreement on our cooperation with the European Union’’, Chikoti said.

Although relations are old, there is still a certain mistrust. Last week's Council of Ministers protested about the inclusion of some members of the European list of third countries with weak anti-money laundering and terrorist financing systems.