BRUSSELS, November 15 (EUROPA PRESS) –
This Wednesday, the European Union signed the new cooperation framework with countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, which will regulate and finance cooperation policies with 79 countries in the three regions for the next 20 years.
The pact, which will be known as the Samoa Agreement and renews the agreement known as the Cotonou Agreement, covers issues such as climate, sustainable development and growth, human rights and peace and security. It will be applied provisionally from January 1, 2024, subject to approval by the European Parliament and ratification by the various parties.
“It will provide a modernized framework to revitalize our relations with the largest group of partner countries, to provide a platform for dialogue and coordination to face together the challenges of our time,” said Jutta Urpilainen, Commissioner for International Cooperation.
In this way, the Finnish Commissioner has called for exploiting the “collective power” of the four regions, showing that Europe has an “ambitious” investment agenda through its Global Gateway initiative.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Josep Borrell, in turn viewed the signing of this agreement as a “milestone” that aims to leave “old paradigms” in international cooperation behind. “It brings together more than half of the UN members from four continents to pursue common priorities and interests,” he said.
The agreement comes during Spain’s EU Council Presidency, which has celebrated that the agreement will help both parties better address global challenges together and the pact with a “very large and diverse group of countries” for “concrete actions to deepen of their goals” partnership in order to build a common future.
After two years of political deadlock, the EU is taking this step to modernize the general framework of relations with the countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. With this agreement, it wants to go beyond development policy and focus on other areas such as peace and security, job creation, economic development or climate change.
This initiative was blocked for two years due to the reluctance of several EU member states, particularly Hungary, which denounced that the framework involved interference in migration and sexual minority policies.