Allow us to thank you for your presence, in such great numbers, on the occasion of the signing of my latest work of the mind, which brings us together today. Your strong mobilization makes this gathering an occasion for warm human contact, for sharing and for savoring the nourishment of the mind — the mind that needs to be fed and kept alert in order to find its way through the turbulence and darkness of today’s world.

Many say that the tradition of works produced by the mind now belongs to the past with the advent of artificial intelligence. What they fail to realize is that artificial intelligence itself feeds on the products of human intelligence in order to better respond to the requests of its users. As far as Africa is concerned, I believe we need to strengthen the production of books and knowledge in order to nourish artificial intelligence and our present world with the African gaze, with African perspectives, epistemologies and rationalities. In saying this, I am sharing with you from the outset one of the reasons that motivated the writing of the book From the Negotiations to the Signing of the Samoa Agreement.

Indeed, the book that brings us together retraces the behind-the-scenes story of the post-Cotonou negotiations. The decision to publish it rests on the following wager: to narrate, without filter or detour, the personal experience of the post-Cotonou negotiations, in all that it holds of the intimate, the amusing, the unspoken, the poignant, of trials and contrasts, of diplomatic engineering and the management of multiple interactions: interactions with the Member States of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, with the institution itself and its regional blocs, with the African Union, between the OACPS and the European Union, between chief negotiators, and interpersonal interactions.

The choice of narrative as the medium for expressing my personal experience of the negotiations is rooted in African and philosophical traditions on which I will not dwell.

I would simply like to point out, very briefly, that in Africa — notably the Africa of the master griots so well known in the western part of the continent — putting an event into narrative form means that it ceases to be an isolated fact and becomes inscribed in temporality, which is itself not an abstract space but a living one, because it merges with the lived experience of peoples.

In Africa, narrative organizes temporalities and makes it possible to transmit worldviews, values and the relationship to ancestry. Narrative does not merely recount an event; it establishes its existence and passes it on from generation to generation. It is an instrument of memory, both individual and collective.

On the philosophical level, Paul Ricoeur places narrative capacity among the fundamental capacities of the human being. The power to tell, and to tell one’s own story through temporality, allows human beings to give shape to their own existence through stories put into narrative form.

Telling one’s own story is, according to Ricoeur, the condition of possibility of “narrative identity,” but also the condition required to ensure coherence between the stable part of our identity (Idem-identity) and the part that changes over time (Ipse-identity). In short, the history of each of us is a set of narratives that continually consolidate our identity, which is a composite and ever-open identity. Henri Bergson rightly noted in his book Matter and Memory that “Memory is the principle of the subject’s identity, and it is by virtue of this memory that the individual recognizes himself in time.”

The narrative I have undertaken in this book retraces my personal memory of the post-Cotonou negotiations, but also the memory of my interactions with the other stakeholders, within the framework of a shared memory, which is the great guardian of our common recollections.

Beyond these considerations, the idea of writing this book, as a specific work of the mind, was born in me of the following conviction: to share with the public, with present and future generations, within the framework of a public use of reason, my experiences of the negotiations. Having made, in the Kantian sense of the term, a “private use of reason” during the negotiations (the private use of reason being the use one makes of it in the exercise of a mission or mandate), I told myself it was essential to proceed to a public use of reason on those same negotiations. “By the public use of one’s own reason I mean that use which anyone may make of it as a man of learning addressing the entire reading public,” says Immanuel Kant.

The man of learning, in this thought of Kant’s, is the enlightened citizen who thinks for himself and enlightens the public through the dissemination of his ideas. The advantage of a public use of reason is that it opens up new possible horizons for action. Without the public use of reason, action runs the risk of remaining monotonous, without flavor or innovation.

The public use of my reason through the publication of this book places the OACPS-EU partnership in its post-Cotonou phase before the public — in its principles, its foundations and its values as much as in its priorities, its content, its limits, its unspoken elements and its impertinences.

The Samoa Agreement has been in the public domain since November 15, 2023, the date of its signing. But the particularity of this book is that it speaks of this agreement from the inside, from an experience lived over almost two years, and brings into the public sphere fragments of truth that enrich our understanding of the Agreement. Better still, the facts narrated in the book, the debates they will spark, and the lessons that the OACPS and EU countries and their citizens will collectively draw from them will contribute, such is my conviction, to reviewing and better defining the partnership or partnerships between the four entities that are Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Far from closing the debate, this position should on the contrary revive the strategic discussions on the present and future of the partnership, given that the world has changed profoundly since the end of the negotiations — and I recently asked myself whether the negotiations would have led to the agreement currently in force had they taken place today. The lesson to be drawn is that major international negotiations bear the imprint of the global environment of their time.

Ladies and gentlemen,

I have made a habit of writing while being engaged in daily action, and this allows me to link theory and practice. My writings feed on my experiences and my experiences fertilize them. My experiences provide material for my books, and my writings shed light on my actions and commitments. Kwame Nkrumah said in his book Consciencism that “Practice without thought is blind; thought without practice is empty.” This book on the negotiations bears eloquent witness to that, and answers the need to fertilize action through reflection and to draw material from field experience to nourish reflection. Far from being a mere recycling of past experiences, the book brings the diplomacy of international negotiations into the dialectic between theory and practice.

Anyone with a passion for diplomacy, international relations and questions of global governance will find in the book testimonies and lessons drawn from practical experience in the conduct of negotiations. The philosophy underlying the Samoa Agreement, which shines through the book, is that a partnership that aspires to be modern must rest on principles of balance, mutual respect and shared development. The post-Cotonou negotiations were conducted in a spirit of sincere dialogue, institutional innovation and the realization of common interests, while taking into account the specificities and aspirations of the African, Caribbean, Pacific and European States. The format of the Agreement (a common foundation and three regional protocols) is an illustration of this.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The process that led to the post-Cotonou Agreement was not a smooth river, and the book bears witness to this when it echoes the disagreements — or better, to borrow John Rawls’s words, the “reasonable disagreements” — that at times blocked our momentum and tested our goodwill. These disagreements were, of course, both internal and external.

The intra-OACPS disagreements, particularly within the Africa regional group, concerned, among other things, the AU’s decision to move towards a strengthened continent-to-continent partnership between Africa and Europe at the end of the Cotonou Agreement, without prior agreement with the OACPS.

On this thorny issue, diplomatic method and tact were lacking. The Kigali decisions did not take into account the fact that the ACP and the AU are distinct institutional realities, and a decision of this kind should not be taken without first speaking with the ACP. Moreover, the lack of coherence, coordination and alignment between the positions of the diplomats of African States in Addis Ababa and those of the same States here in Brussels did not at all work in favor of the AU’s approach. We must draw lessons for the future.

As for the external disagreements — those between the OACPS and the EU — there were difficulties relating to the International Criminal Court, whose legitimacy is compromised today. The idea of permanent international justice is in itself highly pertinent in my eyes as a philosopher, but the prosecutions brought by the ICC were felt within the ACP Group, and particularly among African States, to be a two-speed justice.

The other difficult questions between the OACPS and the EU during the negotiations that the book highlights are health and sexual and reproductive rights, non-discrimination based on sexual orientation and identity, the death penalty, the question of the link between the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and the new agreement, the question of the restitution of African cultural property, the role of civil society, external interference, good governance in tax matters, the liberalization of maritime transport, and migration.

The disagreements on most of these questions were finally overcome through concessions made on both sides, and the Agreement was signed. This book, I hope, will nourish the debates on the future of the partnership between Africa, the Caribbean, the Pacific and Europe, and will serve as a guide for decision-makers, negotiation professionals and civil society actors working for a fair and effective partnership between the West and the countries of the Global South.

Finally, I would like to thank all those who worked behind the scenes on the proofreading and editing of the book. I would also like to reiterate my thanks to all of you for your mobilization and your evident interest in this signing ceremony.

Thank you for your kind attention.