The next ACP-EU agreement and the resilience of the aid mindset

Abstract

COVID-19 has had far-reaching effects all over the world, the most visible of which on the world economy and public health – and these effects will last for some time. Interestingly, by reading the agreed text of the proposal of the next ACP-EU Agreement, yet to be ratified by member states of both parties, the pandemic is referred and treated in it as a minor ingredient. An interesting question is to know why? And the answer goes around two vectors: one, most of the text was already prepared well before pandemics and its rationale did not change; two, the next Agreement intends to be a 20 plus years arrangement, supposed to go well beyond COVID-19 threat, notwithstanding its major consequences.