Report on the ACP- EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly in Nambia, 28 - 30. April 08
The fifteen members of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly (ACP-EU JPA) from the SADC member states and their fifteen European Parliamentary counterparts, met in Windhoek, Namibia on 28 and 29 April 2008, under the Co-Presidency of Co- Presidents Glenys Kinnock and Wilkie Rasmussen. This was the first ever regional Meeting of the ACP-EU JPA to be organised under Article 17.3 of the Cotonou Agreement and Article 6 of the ACP-EU JPA Rules of Procedure.
Members discussed the regional integration process in the SADC Region and the involvement of parliamentarians. To this end, the need for regional institutions, in addition to national, for follow-up and implementation of SADC Protocols was seen as an integral process of regional integration.
With regard to the EPAs, it was acknowledged that the negotiations had presented the SADC Region with complex challenges. The SADC EPA should contribute to strengthening regional integration, reinforcing the gains that have so far been made in advancing objectives and programmes of regional integration.
Members were informed that it was difficult, from an economic perspective, to establish customs unions in a region with overlapping memberships such as the SADC Region, as such configurations would have the effect of undermining and complicating intra-regional trade said the EP report from the conference.
During the meeting, Human rights issues, as well as Peace and Security and the rising food prices in the African region have been intensively discussed.
