Brussels, 07/03/2007 (Agence Europe) - The first meeting of EU development ministers, organised by the German presidency of the Council without a formal agenda, will be held in Petersberg near Bonn in Germany on 12 and 13 March with a view to discussing the EU's role as a partner in sustainable development.
The meeting, to which the ministers of some three dozen African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states have been invited, will focus on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) that have been the subject of tough, lengthy negotiations between the EU and the six ACP sub-regions to introduce a trading system compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. The German presidency hopes that discussion of this highly controversial issue will help foster a meeting of minds on the development aspect of the EPAs. It is hoped that the negotiations can be drawn to a close by 31 December 2007 so the EPAs can come into force next year. At the recent joint ACP-EU trade ministers meeting (see EUROPE 9378), EU member states were not actually represented by ministers.
Explaining that the German presidency's aim is to ensure better linkage of trade and development issues, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, the German federal economic cooperation and development minister, who will be chairing the debates, told her colleagues it was important that the EU made it clear that the Economic Partnership Agreements for developing countries provided the opportunity to ensure those countries could be more fairly involved in world trade. EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel and the EU's chief negotiator, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, will also be attending the meeting.
Other issues to be discussed by EU ministers include the division of labour between member states and the European Commission under the EU's development policy (see EUROPE 9376 on the European Commission's report mooting a new Code of Conduct), and how energy issues mesh with development. (an)