The 36th Session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly will take place from 3 to 5 December 2018 in Cotonou (Benin). It will be preceded by meetings of the three standing committees and the Bureau on 1 and 2 December 2018.
Post-Cotonou: the future partnership of the EU-ACP after 2020 The Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the EU and 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries will expire in February 2020. “PostCotonou” partnership negotiations officially started on 28 September and the first technical meetings took place on 18 October. Covering one in five people in the world, the ACP-EU partnership has a political dimension and deals with development and economic cooperation. As the world has changed considerably since the Cotonou Agreement first came into force, the Agreement needs to be modernised accordingly. Building on the lessons of 43 years of cooperation and making the most of the new circumstances, the future agreement can bring unprecedented opportunities including growth and job creation, human development, peace and a better way of dealing with security issues, climate change and migration. The keynote speech of this Session will therefore be on “Post-Cotonou” and delivered by Professor Maurizio Carbone, who is a specialist in International Relations and Development at the University of Glasgow. The concrete involvement of the international community in the fight against terrorism in the Sahel Across the Sahel, terrorism and extremism are proliferating at a dangerous rate. Violent jihadist incidents increased by over 300% between 2010 and 2017. Although counter-terrorism efforts have been made by the UN, France, and the Group of Five Sahel States (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger), the lack of funding and organisational capacity has resulted in limited success. International actors themselves are increasingly becoming the targets of extremism, with 150 UN peacekeepers killed in Mali in the course of their work for MINUSMA. Although jihadist groups remain fragmented, until the toxic mix of poverty, unemployment, and climate change prevalent in the Sahel is tackled, jihadism will continue to pose a major threat. The political situation in Cameroon Since 2016 the cross-border, political, economic, security and humanitarian crisis in Cameroon has escalated and is spreading throughout the region beyond Cameroon’s borders, severely affecting not only the internal sstability of the country but also neighbouring countries. Civil war is looming and it is likely to have serious regional implications. Cameroon's political stability is vital as its security forces underpin the region’s ability to combat the many insurgent groups, including those at sea. Moreover, Cameroon makes up 35% of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) zone; if Cameroon’s economy collapses, the Central African Region will suffer too. The international community is deeply troubled by the situation.
Source: europarl.europa.eu
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