A Triumph of Realism over Idealism? Cooperation Between the European Union and Africa

Relations between the European Union and Africa pre‐date the origins of the EU itself. With the Lomé Convention of 1975, relations between the two regions were set on a more solid footing with a highly institutionalised framework of cooperation, hailed at the time as a partnership of equals. The successor to the Lomé Convention, the Cotonou Agreement, is now also portrayed as an innovative form of interregional cooperation, a form of hybrid interregionalism between the formal regional grouping of the European Union and a ‘constructed’ region, comprising the African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. This article suggests that the EU approach to interregionalism is itself evolving, and the cooperation with the ACP group does not reflect any sustained commitment on the part of the European Union to patterns of cooperation and partnerships built up in the past.