Brussels, 03/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - In spite of the small number of questions to be settled to conclude the post-Lomé partnership agreement (see yesterday's EUROPE, page 12), the fourth ACP-EU negotiation session that resumed its work on Thursday evening in Brussels after a sleepless night proved more laborious than expected. On Thursday evening, both the Union and the ACP (African, Caribbean, Pacific) states were determined to conclude, but work in plenary was still underway. Difficulties in the drafting of the clause on the readmission of illegal immigrants, the stumbling block of the negotiations throughout the day, caused the delay. Some flexibility in the respective positions obtained at coordination meetings nevertheless offered hope that Ministers would come to agreement on this point. Otherwise, they had only to endorse the progress made on: a) the question of access to the European market for ACP goods during the eight-year preparatory period for implementation of regional economic partnership agreements; b) the duration of the future agreement; c) the total appropriation for the Ninth European Development Fund and its disbursement arrangements.
The plenary was also due to discuss the ACP proposal to hold the ceremony for the signature of the agreement in Fiji, to fix the date of the signature at a joint ACP/EU Council and to be seized formally with the resolution adopted the previous day by the ACP Council (on the initiative of Jamaica) to support formally the candidacy of Cuba -which attended as an observer throughout the negotiations- for full membership in the ACP group. The following is an overview of the outcome of the work.
- Clause on readmission of illegal immigrants. The negotiators tried to overcome their differences on the wording and legal scope of this clause. A real legal battle took place. The Europeans maintained their demand for application of the "standard clause" adopted in December last by the Justice and Home Affairs Council and for the principle of readmission to be included in the body of the new agreement. The ACP states, which favour a simple declaration, categorically rejected the obligation of "readmitting" stateless immigrants or those having transited within their territory before entering Europe illegally, and brought up the much less strict clause contained in the partnership agreement between the EU and Egypt. Also, mentioning the fact that all the EU Member States are not Schengen countries, they called for the application of international rules (Geneva Convention and New York Protocol). The EU was preparing to propose a compromise consisting of emphasising -in provisions of the agreement on this subject- respect for human rights in readmission procedures and the possibility, at the request of one of the parties (the EU on one side and each ACP state on the other), of negotiating bilateral agreements for specific cases.
- Duration of the agreement. Between the 30 years requested by the ACP states and the 15 proposed by the EU, agreement on 20 years seemed possible (this duration would coincide with the time period required for the entry into force of real free-trade agreements: eight years of preparatory period plus 12 years of transitional period).
- Market access. At the request of the ACP states for an improvement of the existing unilateral preferential scheme until 2008 (to compensate for the injury likely to result from duty-free access to the European market for all the least developed countries in 2004), the EU was prepared to respond with a review, when the time comes, of the injury suffered and the grant of compensation on a case-by-case basis.
- Total appropriation. The figure of EUR 13.5 billion (of which 1 billion conditional), to which would be added 9 billion in unused EDF funds seemed acceptable, once the ACP states had been assured that reference would not explicitly be made to the "floating billion" that the EU wants to tie to the actual ability of ACP countries to absorb the funds.
