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

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

BERLIN , 30 OCTOBER 2006

Honourable Chairperson

Honourable Ministers

Chief Regional Negotiators,

Excellencies,

Ladies and gentlemen;

It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the third meeting of the ACP regional chief negotiators for the economic partnership agreements. Let me thank the Honourable Ministers and the Chief Negotiators for accepting the invitation to attend this meeting. I am quite pleased to see that this meeting has attracted the attendance of Ministers from all six EPA regions. With this very commendable development, our discussions at this meeting will be elevated to the Ministerial level.

I want to thank the Director of the Programme Management Unit, Ambassador Cumberbatch, for organizing this meeting. I also want to thank ILEAP, in particular Dr. Dominique Njinkeu, and the Commonwealth Secretariat for agreeing to co-sponsor this meeting and the subsequent one at London later this week at a very short notice.

Honourable Ministers,

This meeting is being held a month before the Council and Summit sessions in Khartoum, Sudan. These High-Level meetings will consider progress in the EPA negotiations and a strong political statement on the EPAs is expected from the Summit. In this respect, the outcome of this and the London meetings will provide valuable inputs into the Summit process of December.

The issues on the agenda are of extreme importance for the EPA process. In this regard I wish to invite the Ministers and all participants to maintain the spirit of the previous two meetings and feel free to express their views. This is the best way to assist our chief negotiators in the task assigned to them. I look forward to your valuable contributions.

Honourable Ministers,

I wish to call the attention of the meeting that, in line with the recommendations of the first meeting of the Chief Regional EPA negotiators that a structured political dialogue on the EPAs be pursued, a provision had been made during the coordination meetings to establish a dialogue with EU Members States and, in particular the EU Presidency.

Thus at the second meeting that was held in Helsinki in May this year we had an opportunity to exchange views with the current EU Presidency, the Finnish Authorities. We have also made a provision to meet and discuss with the next EU Presidency, the German Authorities tomorrow afternoon. This is the main reason of holding this meeting at this location instead of at one of the ACP Regions.

During our discussions we will also report on the follow-up to the conclusions of the second coordination meeting that was held in Helsinki in May 2006.

Honourable Ministers,

Excellencies,

Allow me to conclude my very brief introductory remarks by inviting you also to focus on the plausible balance between the stipulated target date for concluding the EPA Agreements by December 2007, that is, fourteen months from now, and the many issues that remain unresolved in the negotiations.

I thank you for your kind attention.