DAKAR, SENEGAL, 27th April, 2016. Ministers from the Eastern Caribbean countries of St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines attending the 103rd ACP Council of Ministers and 41st ACP-EU Joint Ministerial Council in Dakar, Senegal, from 25th -29th April, 2016, seized the opportunity to promote the concerns and interests of Eastern Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) at the high-level forum offered by the bi-annual intergovernmental encounter.
ACP Ministers met from the 25th -27th April, in the land of Teranga (Senegal) to shape decisions on issues of relevance to the intergovernmental block of 79 developing countries such as trade and commodities, development finance cooperation, private sector development, climate change and the deployment of the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) at the intra-ACP level. Equally high on the agenda was the discussion on the future of the ACP Group. This was followed by a two-day ACP-EU Council session where major issues were debated, such as migration, negotiations on the revision of the Cotonou Agreement, trade cooperation and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Preliminary joint reflections were engaged on the future of ACP-EU relations at a high-level event organized to that effect.
Honourable Lindsay Grant, Minister for Tourism, International Trade, Industry and Commerce and Consumer Affairs from St. Kitts and Nevis apprised ACP and European Ministers of concerns related to the blacklisting by the EU of many SIDS, including St. Kitts and Nevis, as non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, and strenuously defended the integrity of the country with respect to OECD transparency requirements, as it was ranked “among the best performers…in the area of observance of international standards on Transparency and the Exchange of Information on tax matters”. He called for the EU to bring closure to this situation through a proper review of the blacklist that, it is hoped, would lead to a removal of St. Kitts and Nevis from that list.
Minister Grant raised concern at the potential impact of the negotiations of the EU-USA Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and called for a study to be conducted on the implications for small economies of this effort towards “liberalization among the great”. Minister Grant also seized the opportunity to appeal to the European Union to reconsider its use of GDP per capita as a criterion for providing financial support for exogenous shocks and proposed the creation of vulnerability and resilience indicators to adequately gauge the impact of natural disasters and exogenous economic shocks on SIDS. The Commission agreed to undertake research on that matter. Minister Grant further appealed that “the accumulation of variables” in order to benefit from funding for exogenous shocks, “must not … serve as an impediment to being able to access these funds when necessary.”
Using his presence in Senegal, Minister Grant sought to build on and engage in bilateral encounters with a number of African Foreign and Trade Ministers in order to develop linkages within resource-rich Africa and to draw out the unique value of potential partnerships in the ever increasing areas of joint interest. It was also in that context that Minister Grant was confirmed by the current Chair of ACP Council of Ministers from the Congo, in the name of the entire ACP Group, as the incoming Chair of the ACP Council of Ministers, on behalf of the CARIFORUM region. St. Kitts and Nevis’ chairmanship of ACP Council and ACP-EU Joint Council is expected to cover the period 1st August, 2016, to 31st January, 2017.
The Honourable, Sir Louis Straker, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Trade, Commerce and Regional Integration of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, underscored to Ministers in Dakar the need for development cooperation to take into account the vulnerabilities of St. Vincent and the Grenadines including the impact of climate change and natural disasters on major industries of the Island including agriculture and tourism, and called for a review of the Banana Accompanying Measures (BAMs) and for special consideration within the 11th EDF intra-ACP programmes for the development of cashew nuts as a high value product.
Sir Louis Straker also called for the EU to pursue dialogue with countries that were served with a yellow-card under the EU’s Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) Fishing Regulation, and to provide relevant capacity building measures both bilaterally and to the relevant regional institutions where fisheries are dealt with. The Honourable Minister also praised St. Vincent and the Grenadines’ active promotion of youth entrepreneurship fostered by the Youth Empowerment Service (YES) and Supporting Education and Training (SET) programmes, and called on the ACP to take seriously the need to share experiences among the ACP Group as it seeks to reposition itself as a relevant organization for its Member States.
On the issue of the Belize-Guatemala and Guyana-Venezuela border disputes which was brought to attention of ACP Ministers, Minister Straker made an eloquent call to prefer the peaceful resolution of the matters and provided support to resolutions submitted for endorsement. The major issue of the future of the ACP and future of ACP-EU relations was debated by Ministers as they received a report from the Eminent Persons’ Group set up to reflect on options for the Group’s future perspectives. Minister Straker underscored that though a “revamped ACP may not meet the needs of everyone, we need to take task of refining the organization seriously as it is one which we have long desired…and seek to maintain the unity and solidarity that are reflected in the Georgetown Agreement”.
The Eastern Caribbean States Ministers made substantive input in the decisions, resolutions and declarations coming out of the ACP Council of Ministers including on Commodities and Fisheries, financing for efforts to stem the impact of the Zika virus in the Caribbean, as well as border disputes affecting Caribbean countries. The Honourable Ministers formed part of a wider CARIFORUM group of Ministers present in Senegal from Barbados, Guyana, Haiti and Jamaica. ECS Ministers were supported by Mrs. Paula Hippolyte-Bauwens, advisor, from the Embassies of the Eastern Caribbean States in Brussels.
