Cotonou Partnership Agreement


The Cotonou Agreement (CA) is a comprehensive partnership agreement between the European Union and its Member States and the ACP partners, covering three complementary pillar: development cooperation, political dialogue and economic and trade cooperation. It replaced the four successive Lomé Conventions which governed ACP-EC relations from 1975 until 2000, and was concluded for a twenty-year period commencing on 1 March 2000 and expiring at the end of February 2020. The CA entered into force in April 2003.

The partnership is "centred on the objective of reducing and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy", as stated in art. 1.

The agreement is based on four fundamental principles:

  • equality of the partners and ownership of the development strategies;
  • participation (in addition to central governments as the main actors, partnership under the agreement is open to different kinds of other actors)
  • pivotal role of dialogue and the fulfilment of mutual obligations
  • differentiation and regionalisation  [1]


The CA provides for a review every five years. Under Article 95(3) of the Agreement “the European Union and its Member States, on the one hand, and the ACP States, on the other, shall notify the other Party not later than 12 months before the expiry of each five-year period of any review of the provisions they desire to make with a view to a possible amendment of the Agreement (…)”.

The negotiations on the first revision of the CA were concluded in Brussels on 23 February 2005. The revised Agreement was signed in Luxembourg on 25 June 2005 and entered into force on 1 July 2008. However, three ACP countries still have not ratified the 2005 Cotonou revision: Equatorial Guinea, South Africa and Sudan.

At the end of February 2009, both EC and ACP Parties have notified their will to review certain provisions. The negotiations aimed at revising the Agreement for the second time, were officially launched on 27 May 2009. The Parties engaged themselves to conclude the negotiations by the end of February 2010.