Exclusive: South Africa quitting OACPS

South Africa has written to the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States announcing that it plans to quit the 79-member body.

An OACPS spokesperson told Devex by email Thursday that the organization had received a letter from the South African government expressing its intent to leave the OACPS, based in Brussels, which is linked to the European Union by the 2000 Cotonou Agreement.

Though South Africa hasn't commented on its reason for leaving, the OACPS spokesperson said “We understand that South Africa has a separate comprehensive agreement with the European Union, and its link with the OACPS led to the considering of issues that had already been dealt with in the other agreement.”

The EU and South Africa signed a Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement in 1999, and in June 2016 South Africa signed the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and the Southern African Development Community, together with Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, and Swaziland.

South Africa’s withdrawal comes at a sensitive time for the OACPS as Hungary blocks attempts by the European Commission to sign the Post-Cotonou Agreement — painstakingly and at times testily negotiated — which provides the basis for legal, political, and economic relations between the EU and ACP states. Members of the European Parliament reiterated calls to EU states earlier this month to find a breakthrough, more than a year after the deal was initialed in April 2021.

In July this year, Georges Chikoti, secretary-general of the OACPS called for the organization’s members to demonstrate to the world that they are united and “that we are a force to be [reckoned] with.”

The relevance of the OACPS has waned in recent years, as the EU increasingly prioritizes its relationship with the African Union. The OACPS maintains a secretariat with dozens of employees in Brussels, funding for which is split between the commission and ACP states.

The South African government and the European Commission have been contacted for comment.

The OACPS spokesperson also told Devex that “We have been assured that this decision will not affect the deep bonds of solidarity between South Africa and the OACPS.”