The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the European Commission held a high-level dialogue in Brussels yesterday on future relations between the European Union and the 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries participating in the Lome convention.
The day-long meeting, chaired jointly by Mr. Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, and Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro, head of DGVIII, the development directorate-general of the Commission, provided for a structured exchange of views on ways to promote the smooth integration of developing countries into the world economy.
UNCTAD has been requested by the ACP Secretariat to provide technical assistance to the developing country group in its preparations for the negotiations due to commence in September on a successor agreement to the Lomé IV Convention, which expires in February 2000, and during the negotiations themselves. In support of this goal, and to help the ACP take part in future trade negotiations, Professor Pinheiro announced that the European Commission was ready to co-finance an office for the ACP secretariat in Geneva.
Mr. Ricupero and Professor Pinheiro noted that UNCTAD and the Commission share the same development-orientated approach to cooperation with developing countries, emphasizing ways to promote trade and investment. Both sides agreed that special attention needed to be given to the least developed countries (LDCs), and to small and vulnerable economies that did not qualify for LDC status. It was important that the concept of vulnerability be further developed, and defined, they added.
Commissioner Pinheiro outlined a broad framework approach by the European Union to a successor agreement to Lomé IV, involving linkages between economic and social cooperation, development assistance and political dialogue. He pointed out that, in their previous forms, the Conventions had not been able to reverse the declining share of the ACP countries in exports to Europe. UNCTAD and the Commission agreed that a large part of the solution thus lay in strengthening supply-side capacities.
Based on a concerted approach by all relevant multilateral agencies, in which different bodies would take the lead as appropriate, DGVIII suggested that individually-tailored country strategies could be developed.
Main pillars of any strategy, the two organizations agreed, should be the strengthening of the ACP countries’ capacity to trade, with an initial emphasis on greater regional integration; the promotion of investment; and the design of comprehensive private-sector development programmes. Trade-related technical cooperation, already a key feature of the relationship between UNCTAD and the European Commission, would be further developed.
Mr. Ricupero explained that UNCTAD was helping developing countries to build a "positive trade agenda," in preparation for future negotiations. These were likely to prove very complex, and it was essential that developing countries be able to participate actively. It was necessary, he said, to take a fresh look at some neglected issues such as tariff peaks and escalation, which were of especial interest to developing countries.
The discussions in Brussels marked the start of a process of more intensive cooperation between the two secretariats. Participating on Tuesday were senior officials from most of UNCTAD’s Divisions and from several Commission Directorates-General, as well as Ambassador Roderick Abbott, Permanent Representative of the European Commission in Geneva. As part of the follow-up process, Professor Pinheiro will visit Geneva in the coming months for talks with UNCTAD and the World Trade Organization. It was also agreed that a further high-level meeting of UNCTAD and the Commission would be held in summer 1999, at a mutually convenient date.
