Heads of Delegation at the ACP Council of Ministers Meeting opening ceremony.

by Linny Folau

The 95th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers Meeting was opened on June 11, with an emphasis to reinvent ACP as a group to ensure a more solid relationship with the European Union and become a world player under a changing global landscape.

Tonga’s Minister for Labour, Commerce and Industries, and Lead Spokesperson for the ACP-Pacific Group, Hon ‘Isileli Pulu is attending the high-level meeting of the largest trans-regional intergovernmental organisation of developing countries of Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific held, at Le Lagon Resort.

The ACP Secretary General Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas said, as ACP faced the future they recognised the need to reinvent the ACP as a meaningful player on the world stage and must make crucial policy changes regarding its reinvention.

He said global re-alignments and major shifts in the European Union policy orientations had given rise to concerns of possible downgrading of the importance of the ACP-EU Partnership.

“One of the sore points of the ACP-EU relations is the slow progress that has been made so far on the Economic Partnership Agreements negotiations (EPA). While the Caribbean region has already finalised its EPA, the African and Pacific regions are yet to do so.”

Re-engage

Dr Mohamed said there was a clear need to re-engage with the EU to ensure that the EPA negotiations were speedily concluded on the basis of a shared vision of mutuality, interdependence, equity, and fairness without threats or arbitrary deadlines.

He said ACP-EU partnership provided the EU with an unrivalled influence to nearly a billion people and their governments, and that ACP was arguably the best model there is for the contractual approach to world development based on mutually shared responsibilities, dialogue and interdependence.

“The ACP also has numeric strength to prove the collective cause of some of the poorest countries in the world with opportunity to establish crucial alliances not only with Europe, but with some of the emerging global players in the world economy and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa offers a new window of opportunity.”

He said in the upcoming United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20 historic conference in Brazil it is essential that ACP speaks with a common voice and reaches a common ground with their EU partners so that together they could help to push the momentum for reach change at the global level.

Challenge

Hon Mr Alva Baptiste, the President of the ACP Council of Ministers said that for all ACP nations the biggest challenge is global marginality in trade, development, and international finance.

He believed that ACP’s continuing engagement with Europe within the framework of the Cotonou Agreement was part of strengthening their integration into the global economy on the basis of equity and international social justice.

“Our relations with Europe are likely to endure in the years ahead but we cannot take those relations for granted. Europe itself is changing both in geopolitical priorities and institutional architecture which makes it all the more pressing that we explore all possibilities of reinventing the ACP as a group and ensure a more solid basis for our relationship with the EU. And equally important is the need to diversify our international economic relations and explore linkages with other emerging economic powers.”

He said that an important item on the agenda is the prolonged negotiations on the Economic Partnership Agreements with Europe, which are yet to be finalized with Africa and the Pacific.

The 95^th session of the ACP Council of Ministers meeting runs until June 13 before the 37^th session of the Joint ACP-EU Council of Ministers Meeting is held, from June 14-15.

The Tongan delegation includes the Secretary for Labour, Commerce and Industries, Tatafu Moeaki, Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mahe’uli’uli Tupouniua with Natalia Latu and Melelua Langi from the Ministry of Finance and Planning.