The Secretariat of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States

Statement of Sir. John Kaputin, Secretary General, at the closing of the third meeting of the ACP regional EPA negotiators

BERLIN , 31 OCTOBER 2006

As we move to conclude the third meeting of Chief Regional Negotiators for the EPAs, I wish to take this opportunity to say a few words.

First, let me thank Honourable Dame Bille Miller and Honourable Minister Tavola for their very able leadership. For the last two days you did steer our discussions to very meaningful conclusions.

Second, I wish to thank the Ministers from the six EPA regions for according the EPA process the needed political impetus. I also wish to thank all participants and especially the regional negotiators for your very useful contributions to the discussion.

Third, let met again thank both the Directors of the PMU and ILEAP for the excellent facilities made available to support this meeting.

Fourth, I wish to thank the interpreters for their invaluable support of our discussions.

Honourable Ministers,

It became clear from our discussions that the many subjects under the EPA negotiations and the timeline for concluding these negotiations will pose enormous challenges to us all. This is in addition to what became clear at the previous two meetings that at that time the two years of regional negotiations generated very little tangible outputs on our two key offensive interests - the development dimension of EPAs and the support for regional integration processes. As a result, all regions were entering the very tricky phase of the negotiations – the market access phase – with great reservations over the final outcome.

In line with the agreed strategy, we will pursue coordinated political intervention in these negotiations. As I mentioned to you yesterday, the outcome of our meeting will feed into the Summit process of December this year.

Honourable Ministers,
Excellencies,

Let me express my sincere apologies that I will not be able to attend the London meeting of tomorrow and Thursday. The exigency of the preparations for the Summit process requires my presence in Brussels as we will be deliberating on the final preparations before we leave for the Joint Parliamentary Assembly that is scheduled for mid-November in Barbados.

With the support of my colleagues and our counterparts at the Commonwealth Secretariat, I am very confident that the London meetings will be very successful.

To conclude, let me thank you again for your participation and I wish you a very successful meeting in London, and I look forward to welcoming you at the Khartoum Summit in December.

I thank you.