Punta Cana, 01/07/2002 (Agence Europe) - Globalisation formed a background to the twenty-seventh session of the ACP/EU Ministers Council, opened by Hipolito Mjia, President of the Dominican Republic and which came to a close on Friday in Punta Cana. A conference that reached no breathtaking decisions but which was, nonetheless, described by the two sides as being "particularly important". It was the last council before the formal opening of ACP/EU negotiations on 27 September for the conclusion of economic partnership agreements that are compatible with WTO rules. ACP Co-President, Pravind Kumar Jugnauth, Mauritius Agriculture Minister (standing in for Nigeria, which is currently chairing the ACP Council) declared that, "The Council has examined key elements in the continuation of our partnership in a climate of mutual fruitful and understanding co-operation. We have decided to make the Cotonou agreement provisions even more operational". Miguel Angel Cortes, Spanish Secretary of State for co-operation and development, who took over for EU Council President, Josep Piqué, stressed that, "the meeting took place at a particular moment after the Monterrey conference on development funding, before the WTO negotiations begun at Doha and at the time when the Union is involved in reforming its structures with a view to enlargement" European Commissioner, Poul Nielson highlighted the progress with the opening up of the partnership to civil society and pointed out that the Cotonou agreement, had been negotiated at the time when chaos was reining in Seattle. "We are combing trade ad development in order to respond to the challenges of globalisation", he explained, pointing out that in September, the Cotonou trade accord would provide more transparency and more substance to the North/south agreement.
This session was significant in that Cuba attended as an observer, represented by Ricardo Cabrisas, Minister of the Government, and East Timor, represented by the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, José Luis Guterres. The ACP Council heeded the request made by Timor to join the ACP group and on the eve of the session, welcomed East Timor into all ACP bodies as an observer, although the country does not belong to any of the three constitutive geographical regions of the ACP group (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific). The main results of the session are as follows.
- Ratification of the Cotonou agreement: The Council noted that from the ACP side, the ratification procedure had finished, whilst only eight European countries had concluded the exercise at a national level (Denmark, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland, France, Germany, Spain and Ireland). Portugal and Greece will soon join this list as soon as they have submitted their ratification instruments to the ACP secretariat. Austria announced that they will have finished in a fortnight at the latest and Belgium would be ready by the end of the year. Poul Nielson pointed to the necessity of finishing the process before the end of October so that that the 9th Fed financial resources will not be held up as the enter into force of the Cotonou agreement would only come into being two moths after its ratification. Belgium is the only country to not have met the deadline due to the complexity of the procedures. Asked about the possibility of negotiating with certain ACP countries readmission agreements for illegals in the framework of the Cotonou agreement, Poul Nielson explained that it would be far better for the Europe to begin discussion when all Member States had ratified the agreement.
- Economic partnership agreements: The Council noted that the Union and the ACP were almost ready to begin negotiations on 27 September but had not yet debated the respective negotiation mandates. The ACP Council has approved its own guidelines for these negotiations and has informed the Europeans (see EUROPE 26 June pp 15-16). It will be up to ACP Heads of State to formally adopt them during their summit in Fiji on 18-19 July. The final adjustments will be operated during and ACP Ministerial session on 25-26 September in Brussels on the eve of the formal opening of negotiations. The Union and the ACP will have already met during the mixed ministerial trade committee organised by the council for the 23-24 September (date still to be confirmed).
- For ACP countries, the EPA should be used for helping the Cotonou agreement objectives be attained: poverty eradication, progressive insertions of ACP countries in the world economy and consolidation of the regional integration processes in the ACP. "The EPA will not limited to simple trade agreements or reciprocal trade concessions and must be real instruments for speeding up development and which require, in this sense, additional financial resources like those already available to the ACP in the framework of European development funds",
Jean-Robert Goulougana, Secretary General of the ACP group, told reporters. The ACP countries stressed that the loss of customs revenue that the EPAs require will require compensation, the basic principles and details of which will have to be negotiated in the second phase of negotiations (2003-2007). Responding to reporters' questions on this issue, Poul Nielson argued that the loss of customs duty income would be compensated for by an increase in VAT income due to an increase in the volume of trade and an intensification of economic activity. Warning against unnecessary fears, he quoted the positive example of South Africa, saying that the loss of customs income is not the only thing produced with liberalisation. Without saying it would be easy, he said that the liberalisation to be negotiated would be gradual and symmetrical and the EU would not bulldoze its way into ACP markets.
- Political dialogue under the Cotonou Agreement. The Council was unable to adopt the draft guidelines for ACP/EU dialogue since ACP countries felt it was too early to give an opinion. Unhappy with how the dialogue is organised, they outlined their grievances about consultation under Article 96 (criticising the way, for example, sanctions were imposed on Haiti without respecting the 60 day time period laid down for consultation and expressing surprise that the flexibility over this time period that was granted to countries like the Ivory Coast didn't apply to other countries) and unhappy about the level of representation at which the EU negotiates (on numerous occasions the EU had sent ambassadors for ministerial meetings). This joint Council was a case in point since only Spain, Sweden and Portugal were represented at ministerial level.
- Involvement of non-state players. The implementation of the Cotonou agreement: The Council was unable to endorse the proposal outlining eligibility criteria for civil society and the private sector for EDF resources for funding projects since ACP countries want to end the consultations they have begun with ACP civil society beforehand and don't want to be forced by the Commission to accept particular partners on the ground. Diplomatic ACP sources explained that this was a complicated exercise since civil society was not just the NGOs the Commission was used to working with but also includes academia, women's groups, cultural association and the like and agreement had to be reached on how they were to be represented. Poul Nielson told reporters that it was impossible to lay down a definition that covered all of civil society since local communities can also be considered part of civil society.
- Scrapping the Development Council. Seeing this decision as an error, the ACP countries expressed fear that development policy would now be subordinated to the EU's general policy and no longer play an important part in the EU's agenda, dominated by other priorities.
The Council adopted a resolution on Sudan noting positive developments in the country. Nielson said that the Commission was prepared to begin cooperating with Sudan again and providing funds from previous EDFs that had built up and were only awaiting peace in order to be mobilised.
