Continuity and change in international co-operation: The ACP-EU Cotonou Partnership Agreement and its first revision.

The changes made to the Cotonou Agreement in its first formal Review in 2005 are considered. Although some of these, to the political dimensions chapter of Cotonou, may appear to fundamentally alter the EU-ACP relationship, the author argues that it is the changes to the management of the EDF that are likely to have the more important long-term impact on implementation. These occurred partly in the 2005 Review, but also in revisions made in the same period to the financial regulations governing the use of the EDF. The Review allowed the EU to update Cotonou to reflect recent international thinking on development policy and also to cater for the funding needs of its increasingly close relationship with the African Union. This latter relationship is in fact starting to outshine that with the ACP Group that the Agreement actually covers, which suggests that further, perhaps more radical, adjustments can be expected during the next review in 2010. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]