Council of Ministers to Hold Mid-Year Meeting in Abuja

29 May 2010
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Economic Community of West African States (Abuja)
press release

Abuja - Nigeria — The 64th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers will begin on Monday, 31st May 2010 in Abuja to review the status of implementation of the organization's regional integration programmes and consider means of accelerating the realization of the dreams of the institution's Founding Fathers when it was established on 28th May 1975.

The ministers will also consider the 2010 mid-year report of the President of the ECOWAS Commission, Ambassador James Victor Gbeho, which details the performance of the Commission and institutions of the Community, their challenges and prospects. The Council, which is composed of Ministers responsible for ECOWAS Affairs in the organization's 15 Member States, will consider the report of the meeting of the Administration and Finance Committee (AFC) which, among others, contains the recommendation for an approval of a supplementary budget to be utilized for ECOWAS disaster response in Member States, vocational training and tripartite social dialogue in Member States. Also in the Committee's report is an endorsement of a four-year technical assistance project for the provision of anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism analytical software to 13 Member States.

The software will enable them investigate and prosecute financial and economic crimes. In addition, the ministers will consider various memoranda, including those related to the schedule of rotation of the Chairmanship of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, the modalities for the rotation of the positions of President, Vice President and Commissioners of the ECOWAS Commission, the allocation of four positions of Judges of the Community Court of Justice to Member States as well as the allocation of the position of President of the ECOWAS Parliament to a Member State. Similarly, they will consider a memorandum on the progress made on the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) negotiations with the European Union for a free trade area and the report of the Ministerial Monitoring Committee on the EPA negotiations which took place in Bamako, Mali early May 2010.

In a report from the Bamako meeting, the ministers insisted on realizing a balanced and development-oriented EPA that will protect the interest of Member States and supported by an EU-funded EPA Development Programme to enable the region cope with the adjustment costs of the agreement consistent with the mandate of regional leaders. Among others, the ministers called for the integration of the region's private sector into the negotiating process since it will bear the brunt of the regional Common External Tariff (CET) that will accompany the agreement.

They ministers are expected to adopt the West African Common Industrial Policy (WACIP) and its action plan and consider the report of the Eighth Ad Hoc Ministerial Committee on GIABA (Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in West Africa). Furthermore, they will also consider the report of the meeting of Ministers in charge of Defence and Security as well as propose a draft agenda for the mid- year summit of Heads of State and Government scheduled to take place in June 2010.

Read the original article on Ecowas.

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