On the other, it has told the ACP countries that it will work for new dispensations so as to extend the existing preferences for a further period. Faced with this difficult situation, the Brussels Commission seems intent on playing for time, and has proposed a five-year status quo. The forthcoming agreement, due to run from 2000 to 2005, will maintain the basic features of the present convention. With some improvements. So says Joao de Deus Pinheiro, European commissioner in charge of relations with the ACP countries.
European cooperation is less and less directed towards the funding of projects.
Increasingly, it operates at the macro-economic level and may eventually provide African governments with direct budgetary assistance. The transition period would be used in order to enable the ACP countries to diversify their production, become more competitive and consolidate integration in their respective regions - as a precondition for their insertion into the world economy. At the end of this period of grace, Brussels envisages a multi-speed scenario. Brussels also suggests that Europe should make allowances for the increasing differences in levels of development in the ACP countries. They would thus become the priority beneficiaries of European development aid.