The Caribbean has told the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc of countries to find new links outside of the European Union (EU) and to use its numbers to secure its position on critical issues.
According to a release from the Caricom Secretariat, this position was set out at the 7th Summit of the ACP in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea December 10 to 14.
A key topic at the summit was graduation or differentiation in relation to aid which would see some developing Caribbean states losing out because their GDPs have risen. The Caribbean noted that this had been a persistent matter for it in recent years and that the EU’s New Development Policy had aligned itself to this along with international financial institutions.
Should it be implemented in the region, the release said it “would have a major impact on the region since the EU is a major source of development finance.
Barbados Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, Maxine Mc Clean warned about the repercussions of such a policy. According to the release, McClean pointed out that “classification does not recognise the true vulnerability of many of the ACP
countries, in the Caribbean and the Pacific in particular where a single
catastrophic event can destroy the economies of these small island
developing states (SIDS)”.
The release noted that Caricom countries have been pushing this matter at every available opportunity and forum and have enlisted the assistance of countries such as Brazil, Canada and Mexico in fora where Caricom does not have a voice.
The release said that this was an appropriate issue in which the ACP could show its “collective strength”.
Pointing out that the ACP has grown from 46 to 79 countries, the Caribbean implored the group to concentrate its strength on critical issues affecting millions daily.
“Given the current global situation, the Caribbean argued that the
time had come for the ACP to use its advantages of decades of inter-regional
solidarity on various global issues such as trade, development finance,
political dialogue and its relations with other international and regional
organizations”, the release said.
Caricom also urged the ACP to seek diversified partnerships away from the EU and mentioned the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -as one such possibility. The release said this was even more necessary as the current economic situation has seen the EU devoting more and more time to its member states.
Guyana’s Foreign Minister Caroline Rodrigues-Birkett said “solidarity and unity of the ACP cannot be a message of convenience. It has to be demonstrated and deepened in practice, through Intra-ACP Cooperation, at the political level, in trade and investment, in effectively using development assistance to accomplish the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), by cultural, scientific and technological cooperation.”
The release said that Caricom Chairman, St Lucia Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony, in his address entitled ‘Our unity can make a difference’, placed the ACP in context recalling its grounding principles including those of promoting and developing greater and closer trade and economic relations among the Member States and encouraging effective regional and inter-regional cooperation between them. These two themes were developed by the CARICOM Ministers in their statements, Minister Mc Clean on ‘The future of development financing and the post-Busan Global Partnership’ and Minister Rodrigues-Birkett on the ‘Status of the ACP Group towards 2015 and beyond.’
The ACP, the Caribbean posited should be the leader in South-South co-operation and suggested one or two areas in which this co-operation could bear fruit such as a specialized ACP Trade Financing Facility with technical assistance for sound investment proposals.
