HC Deb 21 March 1978 vol 946 cc526-8W
Mr. MacFarquhar

asked the Minister of Overseas Development whether she will make a statement about the ACP-EEC Council meeting held on 13th and 14th March.

Mrs. Hart

This was the third annual meeting of the Council. It was held under the joint chairmanship of Mrs. Use Oestergaard, Danish Minister without Portfolio, and Mr. P. J. Patterson, Jamaican Foreign Minister. I led the United Kingdom delegation.

These meetings provide a valuable opportunity for Ministers from the Community and the African, Caribbean and Pacific States to review the working of the Lomé Convention and other matters of common concern. There was a useful discussion on both the aid and the trade aspects of the Convention. ACP Ministers stressed their concern that the aid funds available should be committed and disbursed at a quicker rate. Community representatives were able to point out that 40 per cent. of the European Development Fund had been committed to projects during the first two years of its operation, although disbursement was naturally not so far advanced. Urgent needs could to a significant extent be met by quick-disbursing forms of aid such as emergency aid, food aid, and the Community's contribution under the Special Action programme.

ACP Ministers asked that certain additional products should be included under the Stabex arrangements. The Community explained that there were difficulties in the way of doing this but agreed to study the ACP proposals. Problems concerning particular commodities of interest to the ACP States were also considered.

In a discussion on trade, Community Ministers stressed that trade between the Community and the ACP States had increased since the entry into force of the trade provisions of the Lomé Convention, and the ACP States had appreciably increased their relative share of the Community's external trade. ACP Ministers, however, believed that the ACP-EEC balance of trade was increasingly unfavourable to the ACP States and that the preferential position which the Convention was designed to give them in Community markets was being eroded through the Community's implementation of the Generalised Scheme of Preferences. They asked for full consultation on such matters. The Community reminded the ACP Ministers of its wider international obligations to the developing countries generally. Consultation procedures with the ACP States were already well established.

The Council also reviewed industrial co-operation policies. In an informal session, which was a useful innovation, there was a valuable exchange of views on prospects for the North-South dialogue, including questions concerning the Common Fund, and debt problems, following the agreement reached three days earlier in Geneva. It was also provisionally agreed that the renegotiation of the Lomé Convention for a further period should begin in July 1978.

In his closing speech, the ACP Chairman said the meeting had been generally constructive and workmanlike. I share that view.