Brussels, 03/12/2004 (Agence Europe) - The council of ministers of the 79 ACP countries (African, Caribbean and Pacific states) ended its twenty-fourth AGM in Brussels on Thursday, making a positive assessment of the previous year. Alongside political decisions adopted to help bring peace in Sudan and the Ivory Coast, and resolutions to defend basic ACP commodities jeopardised by reform of the EU's sugar and banana market under pressure from global trade, the Council appointed the new leaders of the ACP group for the next five years and paved the way for an ACP candidate to be in the running for becoming the new Secretary General of the WTO. The ministers also fine-tuned the ACP's views ahead of the joint ACP-EU ministerial meeting in Brussels on 3 December, which will be negotiating the first five-year review of the Cotonou Accord (in which the EU and the ACP countries signed up to twenty years of partnership development).
Addressing reporters on Thursday evening, Keith Desmond Knight, Jamaica's Foreign Minister and Foreign Trade Minister and acting President of the ACP Council, welcomed the fact that the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, had attended the meeting for the first time, as had Development Commissioner Louis Michel. He said the two politicians had reconfirmed their commitment to the Cotonou Accord and its main objective, namely cooperation in order to eliminate poverty. Knight also welcomed the European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson's commitment to use trade as a development tool for negotiating Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) between the EU and the ACPs. Knight said there was a common position of the EU and the ACP that recommended that free trade should not be seen as a panacea for fighting poverty and promoting sustainable development and for this reason, the EPAs will focus on building capacity to ensure ACP countries can be competitive. He added that the ACPs were in the process of ensuring that EPAs can be used as development tools and would not be looking at market access issues until a later date. Knight's comments at the press conference made it very clear that there was no question of halting the negotiations (as demanded by a series of NGOs in the umbrella group 'Stop EPAs').
Council decides on allocation of high-ranking leadership positions among ACP sub-regions
One of the most important decisions taken by the ACP Council mentioned by the President was the appointment of Sir John Kaputin, the Foreign Minister of Papua New Guinea, as Secretary General of the ACP Group from 1 March 2005 onwards (Kaputin has already served as President of the Joint ACP-EU Parliamentary Assembly). He will take over from Gabonese politician Jean-Robert Goulongana, whose term of office ends on 28 February (he has decided not to stand for re-election).
The post of Secretary General of the ACP Group has gone to a country in the Pacific, the four Sub-Secretary General posts have been allocated to West Africa (responsibility for the Centre for the Development of Enterprise), central Africa (administration and finance), and east Africa (commodities and investment). The newly created Deputy Secretary General of the ACP group will go to the Caribbean. The portfolio for this post has not yet been defined.
According to the rotating chairmanship, the post of Director of the CTA (Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation), a joint ACP-EU institution, goes to the EU, as does the post of Deputy Director of the CDI (Centre for the Development of Industry).
Council to send ACP ministers and diplomats to Darfur
Welcoming progress in political dialogue with a series of countries in conflict, Knight welcomed the Council's decision to send a delegation of ACP ministers and diplomats to Darfur in Sudan. Headed by Keith Desmond Knight himself, the fact-finding delegation will be visiting Sudan from 4 to 10 December and would be looking at what the ACPs can do to help. Knight said they wanted to understand exactly what was going on in Darfur and see what they can do to help because Sudan is an ACP country.
ACP Council continues to support Thabo Mbeki's mediation in the Ivory Coast
Keith Desmond Knight welcomed the fact that the Ivory Coast's African Integration Minister, Mel Eg Theodore, had attended the ACP Council meeting and briefed his counterparts on the situation in the Ivory Coast and seek the ACPs' support for dialogue with the European Union, especially France (see EUROPE of 1 December, p.9). "We are pleased with the information we have been given, confirming that President Mbeki can count on the Ivorian government to follow its mandate through", added president Knight, thus confirming the first commitment of the ACP States to support Thabo Mbeki in his role of mediator. "His mandate was conferred by the African Union, and the ACP family approves it completely (…). The European side also understands the importance of this mediation, and would like these efforts to continue", said the President of the ACP Council.
In his speech to the Council, the Ivorian minister stressed the problems of implementing the Marcoussis and Accra III agreements, given the refusal of the rebels to disarm, adding: "the Ivorian government firmly supports the initiative entrusted to the South African Prime Minister, Thabo Mbeki, and will spare no efforts to create favourable conditions for its successful conclusion. Ivory Coast hopes that the ACP States will facilitate the opening of a specific area of dialogue with the EU and its Member States, especially France, whose facilitation role it has played since the beginning of the crisis it salutes, in order for it to fulfil the mission entrusted to it by the international community under the UN mandate, in full impartiality".
On the sidelines of the session, Mel Eg Theodore told the press: "Everybody got tied up in the [Marcoussis] agreement without considering that it might contain any inadequacies". "The specific area for dialogue under the Cotonou agreement allows intra-ACP solidarity, may lead to concessions and support the efforts of Thabo Mbeki", he said. When asked what he expected of the EU, the minister replied: "we expect nothing of the EU after two and a half years of suspended cooperation". However, he added: "Commissioner Louis Michel seems more open and more disposed to make an unbiased examination of notable progress made" by the Gbagbo government, "rather than digging his heels in on reports which are very often biased". "The government has finished looking at all the Marcoussis texts, with the exception of the modification of article 35 of the Constitution", he observed, disappointed that everybody is apparently acting as though nothing had happened.
275 EUR a tonne: the minimum tariff required for bananas, say the ACPs
The ACP ministers adopted resolutions on: bananas. In order to remain competitive with the uniquely tariff-based regime to be imposed on imports of bananas onto the EU market, the ACPs considered that "275 EUR a tonne is the minimum, the absolute minimum tariff required", said Mr Knight. "The EU has offered 230 EUR a tonne (…), such a low tariff will have harmful effects on the ACP producing countries (…), 275 EUR is the level we need to be able to safeguard the interests of the ACP exporters (…), whilst allowing the EU to honour its trade liberalisation commitments", he said. Cotton: The resolution calls upon the Commission to be open enough for the revision of the Flex (mechanism to compensate for fluctuations in the export revenue of the ACPs via budgetary support) will make it into a tool which is "enough to compensate for losses suffered by African cotton-producing countries". Sugar: The ACPs state "forcefully that the planned reform will be very harmful to the sugar industries of our countries", Mr Knight pointed out "the multi-functional nature of this industry and the dependence of a great many of our work force on this basis commodity: communities live around plantations. The reduction in price is too big, and the transition period too short to allow diversification, either within the sugar industry or to move onto other things altogether".
Towards the appointment of an ACP candidate as WTO Secretary General
The ACPs decided to continue consultations to decide which of them will stand for the post of Secretary General of the WTO. "The ACPs feel that a Director General from an ACP country would serve the WTO just as well as the developing world", said the President. The candidacy of Yaya Krishna Cuttaree, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade of Mauritius has not yet received support, "but the ACP group will only put forward one candidate", said Mr Knight.
ACPs still opposed to weapons of mass destruction clause in Cotonou agreement
On the eve of the joint ACP/EU ministerial session, Mr Knight explained the differences of opinion of the ACPs and the Europeans on: -the inclusion of a clause on the fight against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. "The ACP group maintains its position, the problem of weapons of mass destruction should not be dealt with in article 9 of the Cotonou agreement"; -the international criminal court: the EU would like the ACP countries as a group to approve the statute of Rome. "Our position is that various ACP countries are not ready to accept this. We (…) would like each country to decide sovereignly what it would like to do"; -the investment facility, for which the ACPs call for greater flexibility.
Meeting in Brussels on World Aids Day, the ACP Minister adopted a declaration stressing the importance of prevention and treatment for women and girls. The Council is aware of the need to met this challenge (one of the Millennium development objectives), sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean being particularly badly hit.