On 15 November 2023, the European Union (EU) and its Member States, on one side, and the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) on the other, have signed the much-awaited Post-Cotonou Agreement, also known as Samoa Agreement, by the name of the country where the Agreement was concluded. The Post-Cotonou Agreement is a comprehensive framework agreement that will govern the future relations between the EU and OACPS for the next twenty years. The OACPS is a regional group established in 1975 with the Georgetown Agreement (revised in 2019). It comprises 79 Member States from three different geographical areas (Africa, Carribean and Pacific) which previously formed the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries. For Africa, its members include 48 African countries, and more precisely all Sub-Saharan countries except South Sudan, while South Africa one year ago announced its intentions to leave the group, a decision that so far has not yet materialised. The five North African countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) are also not part of this organization. The ACP group became the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, or OACPS in April 2020. The post-Cotonou Agreement will replace the Cotonou Agreement, set to expire already in February 2020, but de facto extended until its replacement with the new Agreement.
