by ALBERT BRANDFORD

SENIOR MINISTER DAME BILLIE MILLER wants parliamentarians from 106 countries to find the "political will" not only to perpetuate but deepen the now three-decades-old relationship between African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and the European Union (EU).

"Ours has been a valuable one," she reminded the MPs Monday at the formal opening of the 12th session of the Joint Parliamentary Assembly (JPA) at Sherbourne Conference Centre.

"It is to our mutual advantage to ensure that our relationship not only is perpetuated but that it is deepened as well. We have the capacity to achieve this. Let us now demonstrate the political will to make it a reality."

Dame Billie expressed appreciation to the EU for its recognition of the need for custom-designed solutions in its articulation of the various strategies for the ACP.

"These strategies," she noted, "although grounded in the common framework of the Cotonou Agreement, seek to respond, where appropriate, to the challenges which are specific to each of the three geographic regions of the ACP.

"Your presence in Barbados should afford you the opportunity to explore more fully some of the issues that have been discussed repeatedly in Brussels and elsewhere, by viewing them first hand from the perspective of the small vulnerable economies which characterise this region," Dame Billie said.

This is the second time Barbados is hosting the JPA – the first being the 8th session in 1989 – and Dame Billie remarked on a British newspaper which queried that decision pointing out to the publishers that when it was held in Britain there were no such concerns and that tourism was as important to Barbados as it was to Britain and other European Union member states.

Among the key discussed were the impact of tourism on ACP development; programming for the tenth European Development Fund; the state of the Economic Partnership Agreements negotiations; multilateral trade negotiations in the World Trade Organisation and sustainable development.