Cotonou, 22/06/2000 (Agence Europe) - Jean-Robert Goulangana, Secretary General of the ACP group, was smiling as he left the ACP ministerial meeting which took place in Cotonou (Benin) on Wednesday. During the final press conference, the Secretary General congratulated Benin for organising the meeting for examining internal ACP group matters and preparing for the ACP/EU Joint Council which opened on Thursday afternoon. Mr Goulangana mentioned the following results:
1) Approval of the new organigram of the ACP group's Secretariat, which has three Deputy Secretary General positions for the first time as requested by the Santo Domingo Summit of ACP Heads of State. These positions will be allocated to the Pacific, southern Africa and western Africa sub-regions and the postholders will be nominated by August at the latest;
2) Approval of the draft budget for 2000 (a 12% increase on 1999 - to cope with the current reform of the ACP Secretariat structures);
3) The mandate to the Committee of ACP Ambassadors to finish revising the Georgetown Agreement setting up the ACP (see also the news about Cuba on p. 5) and submitting a new draft in November, presenting the terms and conditions for ACP staff and the group's financial regulation, which was noted by the Council, opening an office for the Secretariat in Geneva (WTO Headquarters) which will be operational by the end of the year, reclassifying the Dominican Republic in the table of contributions to the ACP Secretariat, the rescheduling of the Republic of Congo's debt (they have fallen behind in their contributions), and exempting Somalia from paying contributions;
4) Agreeing to grant observer status to the WHO, the FAO, UEMOA (West African Economic and Monetary Union) at the ACP group;
5) Adopting resolutions on sugar, fishery products, bananas, pesticides, Stabex and Somalia and convening the forthcoming meeting of ACP Mining Ministers.
Questioned about the Council's review of the political situation in Fiji, the Secretary General replied that nothing had changed; the Council, which had already spoken out to condemn the use of violence, hoped to be able to send a monitoring team to Fiji "as soon as possible". The condemnation of the coup d'état also applied to the Solomon Islands, he added.
Commenting on the adopted resolution on bananas, Mr Goulangana pointed out that the ACP: a) invited the Union to "maintain the preferential treatment it granted to ACP producers and resist the pressure from Latin American countries which were attempting to link the derogation from WTO rules for the new ACP/EU agreement to the scrapping of the preferential treatment granted by the EU to the ACP; b) stressed that the banana question could not be separated from the economic development of ACP countries and therefore could not be excluded from the future trading system.
6) Asked about the regional economic partnership agreements to be negotiated with the EU, Mr Goulangana stressed that the eight year transition period was essential for the ACP and he said he was confident that the WTO would accept a derogation here since a refusal "would run counter to the interests of the international community to help the least advanced countries join the world economy".