Excellency Mrs. Kamina Johnson Smith, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Jamaica, President-in-Office of the ACP Council of Ministers,
Distinguished Ministers, Heads of Delegations,
Mr. Secretary General of the ACP Group,
Madam, President of the ACP Committee of Ambassadors,
Distinguished Ambassadors and Heads of Mission,
Ladies and gentlemen,
By choosing Togo to host this Hundred-and-seventh (107th) Session of the ACP Council of Ministers, which will be followed by the Forty-third (43rd) Session of the ACP-EU Council of Ministers, our organization has reiterated its attachment to Lomé, a city whose name is consubstantially linked to its memory and recollections both distant and recent.
The ACP Group is a Whole, whose survival depends on the commitment of each Member State. It is in a spirit of cooperation and interaction that we can assume the responsibilities that are ours .
The challenges we face today are numerous and we must make wise, strategic and responsible choices to reposition the ACP Group on the international stage. From the quality and fecundity of our choices, initiatives and actions will result the enabling – or better – empowering dividends that can help our States reduce inequalities and sustainably eradicate poverty.
Your meeting is taking place at a time when tendencies towards self-withdrawal seem to threaten our being-together, testing our Group’s fundamentals such as solidarity, unity and cohesion.
What do we do together for scientific research and mobility of students and teachers? Many of our countries have, more than others, proven expertise in specific areas such as new technologies, e-governance, tourism, agriculture, health, ocean management, and so on ; so many diversities and opportunities that we need to pool more than ever ! We must initiate new forms of cooperation. By working together in a spirit of solidarity, our Group can succeed in making our populations the development actors we want.
Climate change, increasingly devastating natural disasters, migration, terrorism and insecurity are, among other things, today the crucial challenges or problems facing our world. The ACP Group must work in coordination with the entire international community to find significant and lasting solutions.
From 2000 till this day, both our partner and our Group have undergone profound changes that must be taken into account in defining the outlines of our future partnership. Europe has in fact grown from 15 to 28 Member States, since the new States do not necessarily have the same historical links with the ACP countries.
This enlargement has serious implications for the orientation of the EU’s external policy.
Similarly, the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, the consequences of which are not yet fully known, will have repercussions on trade between the ACP countries and the European Union and on the consistency of the European Development Fund ( EDF), of which the United Kingdom is one of the main contributors.
Your task is somewhat alleviated, especially since the various bodies of our Group led, upstream fruitful reflections that have enabled to shape our vision of a new type of partnership after Cotonou, which can ensure a better result for countries and citizens of Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific.
With these words, I declare open the 107th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers and wish, in the name of our history and the “hope principle” precious to Ernst BLOCH, a great success in our work.
Long live South-South cooperation,
Long live the ACP
Thank you.
