2020 is now a wrap and one of the things of interest is the confirmation earlier this month of the replacement of the Cotonou Agreement between the European Union and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).

 The agreement, which expires this month, is a big deal. Enjoining the EU with 79 developing countries, including 48 countries from Sub-Saharan Africa, its membership represents more than half of the seats at the United Nations.

It has also courted some controversy. With a market of over 1.5 billion people, much of it in the continent, the pact has been criticised for what has been viewed as its lopsided Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).

The critics, many of them African, decry unbalanced trade relations, accusing the EU of flooding local markets with cheap imports. They charge that this destroys local economies.

The EU denies this, but a large number of African countries have refused to ratify the EPAs since their institution in 2014.

A separate and perhaps harsher criticism is that in 60 years of independence the Europe-Africa relationship hasn’t fostered Africa’s industrialisation, deemed by many experts as the one tool that could substantially lift African economies.

Nonetheless, that the Cotonou Agreement has held for the 20 years it has been in existence shows that it must have its good points.

Other than economic and trade cooperation, its other pillars include a political dimension and development programmes funded by the EU to the tune of €30.5 billion between 2014 and 2020.

Taken together, these pillars sought to eradicate poverty and contribute to integration of the countries into the world economy.

In the new treaty to replace the agreement, they have now been adjusted to take account of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris climate change agreement.

It now includes six broad areas ranging from human rights, democracy and governance to social development, sustainable growth and migration. The reworked treaty will come into force in December 2021.

Some of the notable changes touch on migration. The text includes new commitments from OACPS countries on return and re-admission.

Migration and mobility have always been a sore issue in the EU, mainly because of previous refusal or inability of African countries to agree to readmit failed migrants, despite having promised to do so in the Cotonou agreement. The new pact now makes it an unavoidable commitment.

Another issue pertains to Sex and reproductive health and human rights. The new text forbids discrimination on any grounds, including sexual orientation and gender. It will be interesting to see how OACPS countries with stringent anti-gay policies will take this.

Another notable shift is in what is being described as the "3+1” composition. The new deal will now ensure each region ­- Africa, the Caribbean, and Pacific – has its regional protocol.

The new agreement will replace the Joint Parliament Assembly composed of MEPs from the European Parliament and OACPS parliamentarians with three separate joint assemblies for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, respectively.

Surprisingly, the new accord retains the economic partnership agreements. One doubts this won’t remain an issue of controversy unless perceptions of lopsided trade are assuaged.

On another note, it cannot be overlooked the negotiations between the EU and the African Union on a separate "strategic partnership” between the two continents, now postponed to next year because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The envisaged EU-AU cooperation aligns with the AU Commission desire to structure relations with strategic partners to coordinate and align their interventions with the African priorities defined in Agenda 2063. 

There are questions however whether this quest of a separate partnership is moot, given that the sub-Saharan African protocol in the post-Cotonou Agreement will allow separate regional protocols for the continent as well as its own institutions, implementation mechanisms.

The new protocol could structure the envisaged EU-AU cooperation. Informed observers note how the consultations between the EU and the AU for the adoption of a joint strategy coincide with the new EU-OACPS partnership and legal framework that will govern relations between them over the next 20 years.

They wonder whether there are not too many other specific regional strategies, such as in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea and elsewhere, to make an additional EU-AU partnership viable.