The letter sent by the European commissioner begins by recalling that “currently, the Commission and the Cape Verdean government are elaborating a strategy document for the country and an indicative program for the 10th European Development Fund, which will constitute the foundation for relations of cooperation between 2008 and 2013,” explicitly adding that “this process includes the concept of Special Partnership.”

José Ribeiro e Castro considered the letter “a great victory for all of those who, like myself and the CDS, work persistently for this special statute in the relationship between Cape Verde and the European Union,” stressing that “this is the first time that the European Commission has expressly acknowledged in an official document that it is working in the spirit of constructing this much sought-after ‘Special Partnership’ with Cape Verde.”

Indeed, Louis Michel characterized the Special Partnership under construction between the EU and Cape Verde as “strengthened cooperation between the Commission and Cape Verde in priority sectors such as security and relations with the European Union’s ultra-peripheral territories,” the “practical modalities” of which will be defined “in the coming months.”

Michel also expressed his interest in holding an EU/Cape Verde Forum, as Ribeiro e Castro had previously suggested, affirming that he would discuss the initiative with Cape Verdean authorities in the near future.

José Ribeiro e Castro believes that such a forum would be of vital importance, as “it will lend body and greater doctrinal consistence to the partnership, which is in the mutual interest of the European Union and Cape Verde to develop, without in any way jeopardizing the ties and frameworks of cooperation that currently exist.”

In 2006, the European Parliament approved a resolution including the following points:

Considering the existence, in the form of islands situated in the Atlantic Ocean, of a specific number of ultra-peripheral insular regions of the European Union which are nevertheless connected to the European continent, which brings up specific problems within the framework of the European Neighbor Policy, as these islands also have, in their proximity, neighbors, in the form of islands that do not belong to the European Union, with which they share common historic ties, [...]

[...] The Commission is exhorted to define clear priorities for the European Neighbor Policy, establishing to this effect result evaluation criteria, and to welcome the idea of establishing a European Neighbor Accord at the end of the European Neighbor Policy process with those countries not requesting entrance [into the European Union] but which are close to the community; to propose and develop specific policies aimed at making the neighbor policy as extensive as possible to the Atlantic island States neighboring the ultra-peripheral regions adjacent to the European continent when particular issues of geographic proximity, cultural and historical affinity and mutual security are relevant [...]

Ribeiro e Castro affirmed that he was satisfied with this “new and important signal on the part of the Commission,” and that he was willing to continue “diligences toward not just promoting concrete progress in reflections on the future of cooperation between the European Union and Cape Verde, but also creating mechanisms allowing for the intensification of this cooperation.”

Source A Semana