Brussels, 17/11/2006 (Agence Europe) - The explosive situation in East Africa- and particularly in the Horn of Africa- and the arduous negotiations for Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) between the European Union and six regions of the group of ACP States (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) are the two burning subjects on the agenda of the 12th session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, which will bring together an equal number of members of the European Parliament and MPs of the 78 ACP countries linked to the EU by the Cotonou agreement, in Bridgetown (Barbados, Caribbean) from 20 to 23 November.
On both of these subjects, the Assembly, to be co-chaired by British Labour member Glenys Kinnock and the President of the Gabonese Senate, René Radembino Coniquet, will adopt emergency resolutions. In the view of the parliamentarians, these are major concerns, made worse by the persistence and implications of conflicts in Sudan and Somalia, Eritrea and Uganda, and by growing fears among the ACP of the potentially devastating socio-economic repercussions of the EPAs, which are set to enter into force on 1 January 2008 to prepare for the eventual liberalisation of trade with the EU between unequal partners. The speech by Dame Billie A. Miller, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados, the main spokesperson for the Cariforum in the framework of negotiations with the EU and president of the ACP ministerial trade committee, will enrich the debate. Once again, the European Commission is expected to try to mollify the fears which will be raised, as Commissioner Mandelson attempted to do in Brussels on 17 November, at the first Europe/Africa Business Forum, pointing out that "the EPAs are an instrument of development" of which "the African entrepreneurs will be the driving force".
Also on the agenda of this JPA will be the problem of light and small-calibre weapons and sustainable development (report by the committee on political affairs), tourism and development (committee on economic development, finance and trade), and water in the developing countries (committee on social affairs and environment). The reports drafted by the Assembly's standing committees on each of these subjects will steer the debates prior to the adoption of current resolutions.
The elections of 29 October in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the situation in the country in the wake of the proclamation of victory for Joseph Kabila will also be discussed, but will not be the subject of a resolution.
The Joint Parliamentary Assembly will also have the opportunity and leisure to interrogate the European Commission, particularly with an address by Louis Michel, Commissioner for Development, on the programming of resources of the 10th European Development Fund (EDS), and the Finnish Presidency of the Council of the EU, which will be represented by Paula Lehtomäki, the Minister for external trade and development.
With Mark Malloch Brown, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, the parliamentarians will debate employment and the role of the United Nations on the 21st century.
On the last day of the JPA, the MEPs and their counterparts will exchange their points of view on the Doha Round and the prospects of its resumption, following its suspension last July, with Pascal Lamy, Director-General of the WTO.
The ACP parliamentarians have already met in Bridgetown for their sixth Parliamentary assembly, one of the objectives of which was to prepare the positions they are to defend at their meeting with their European counterparts. (an)