EU-ACP Lome/ Cotonou Partnership Agreement
EU-ACP Lome/ Cotonou Partnership Agreement : A cooperation agreement defining the relations between the fifteen (15) member states of the European Union (EU) and seventy-one (71) countries of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific (ACP). This agreement has long been acclaimed as a unique model for North-South cooperation. It is a partnership based on the principle of political equality between the two groups of countries with unequal economic development levels. The agreement offers stability through the contractility of the rights and duties on each side, and predictability through pre-allocated resources. The original agreement, signed at Lome in 1975 and renewed several times, combines a trade regime of preferential access to the European market for ACP products, together with a financial and technical aid package. The fourth Lome Convention of 1990 and revised in 1995, came to an end in February 2000. The new partnership agreement of the EU-ACP to replace Lome, was signed on 23 June 2000 in Cotonou, Benin. This agreement, which covers the next twenty (20) years of the relationship, is committed to: (a) setting up of a new trade arrangement characterized by the progressive abolition of trade barriers, in accordance with WTO rules; (b) maintaining, in the interim, of the current non-reciprocal preferences and the regimes of the various protocols; and (c) Assisting ACP countries with their gradual and harmonious insertion into the world economy - to increase production, supply and the competitor competitive nature of their products and to attract inward investment. This is being done against the background of speeding up regional integration in their regions
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