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The Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Mr Luwellyn Landers, will tomorrow, 11 December 2018, depart to Brussels, Belgium to participate in the 108th Session of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group (ACP) Council of Ministers scheduled from 12-14 December 2018.
 
The 108th Ministerial is the first ACP Ministerial meeting since the commencement of negotiations with the EU, and also comes soon after finalisation of the position of the African region on post-Cotonou, during the 11th Extraordinary Session of the African Union (AU) Assembly, held on 17 and 18 November 2018 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
 
To date, five rounds of negotiations have been held in Brussels.  The ACP negotiates through a Central Negotiating Group (CNG) and three Technical Negotiating Teams (TNTs). South Africa participates in the negotiations as one of two regional representatives in the TNT on Trade, Investment, Industrialisation and Services.
 
In addition to negotiating a successor agreement to the CPA, the ACP Group is reviewing its performance over the last forty years and reflecting on how the ACP could respond to the current global environment through a revision of its founding document, the Georgetown Agreement. This process is aimed at reviewing the mandate, vision, mission and strategic direction of the ACP as a reformed international organisation post-2020, including its future interactions with international role-players beyond the EU.
 
The legal basis for relations between the ACP and the European Union (EU), the Cotonou Partnership Agreement (CPA), will expire on 29 February 2020. The CPA makes provision for Duty-Free, Quota-Free (DFQF) trade for ACP Member States into the EU.
 
Deputy Minister Landers will be supported by Ambassador Baso Sangqu, South Africa’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and the European Union, and senior officials from the Department of International Relations and Cooperation.
 

Issued by The Department of International Relations and Cooperation