29 June General Affairs Council

EU FOREIGN ministers agreed a draft negotiating mandate for a new Lomé Convention, the trade aid instrument which binds the Union to 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. When negotiations begin this September, the Union will offer the ACP inter-regional free trade agreements to start in 2005 and come fully into effect ten to 15 years later. In response to criticisms by development organisations that ACP economies might not be able to cope with liberal trade, ministers promised that countries which did not want an FTA would get "equivalent treatment" to current trade benefits. "We cannot go backwards with any country in comparison to what they have today," said Development Commissioner João de Deus Pinheiro. Specifically, ACP countries will be offered "enhanced" market access under the Union's Generalised System of Preferences (GSP), although it is still unclear exactly what that will entail.