IV EU-CARIFORUM Summit — Joint Communiqué

The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) and the Euro­pean Union (EU), rep­re­sent­ed by the Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Coun­cil Mr Her­man Van Rompuy and Mr José Manuel Durão Bar­roso, Pres­i­dent of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of Mr José Luis Rodríguez Zap­a­tero, Pres­i­dent of the Gov­ern­ment of Spain and Pres­i­dent in turn of the Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union, held their IV Sum­mit in Madrid, Spain on 17 May 2010, on the occa­sion of the VI Sum­mit of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment of the Euro­pean Union and Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean. They dis­cussed, a series of issues relat­ing to CARIFORUM-EU rela­tions both in the wider ACP-EU con­text as well as in the frame­work of the ongo­ing bi-region­al coop­er­a­tion. While tak­ing note of some of the chal­lenges affect­ing their regions, they agreed to take advan­tage of oppor­tu­ni­ties to joint­ly devel­op a new part­ner­ship strat­e­gy, pro­mote region­al inte­gra­tion and coop­er­a­tion for sus­tain­able devel­op­ment and devel­op effec­tive respons­es to cli­mate change and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, includ­ing recon­struc­tion of Haiti.

1. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment con­firmed the strength of the cur­rent bire­gion­al part­ner­ship which is based on his­tor­i­cal ties and respect for the prin­ci­ples enshrined in the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Nations. 

2. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment com­mend­ed the new impe­tus giv­en to the CARIFORUM-EU part­ner­ship by the launch­ing of the high lev­el polit­i­cal dia­logue in Kingston in March, 2010. They also wel­comed the ini­tial joint stake­hold­ers’ con­sul­ta­tions in Bar­ba­dos, and not­ed the impor­tance of the delib­er­a­tions in those fora on a wide range of top­ics relat­ed to the CARIFORUMEU rela­tions, as a means to inform the ensu­ing dia­logue at Sum­mit lev­el in Madrid.

3. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment exchanged views on the visions for future part­ner­ship, and agreed to work togeth­er towards the adop­tion of the Joint Caribbean EU Strat­e­gy to under­pin future rela­tions. They agreed that the Joint Strat­e­gy must con­tin­ue to be under­pinned by the val­ues that they share and must reflect their com­mit­ment to the UN Char­ter, respect of uni­ver­sal human rights, democ­ra­cy and the rule of law. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment val­i­dat­ed the attached out­line of the strat­e­gy which empha­sizes the will to strength­en their polit­i­cal part­ner­ship and work togeth­er to improve the qual­i­ty of life of all their peoples.

4. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment wel­comed the progress achieved to date in the CARICOM inte­gra­tion process and oth­er ongo­ing sub-region­al inte­gra­tion and coop­er­a­tion process­es, and they reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to increas­ing progress and co-oper­a­tion on this issue. They exchanged views on ongo­ing pri­or­i­ties includ­ing the estab­lish­ment of a Caribbean Infra­struc­ture Trust Fund, advanc­ing EPA imple­men­ta­tion and oth­er ways to address the cur­rent tradere­lat­ed, eco­nom­ic and social chal­lenges fac­ing the Caribbean region, as well as oppor­tu­ni­ties for CARIFORUM-EU coop­er­a­tion on the use of Inno­va­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy, includ­ing in the pur­suit of Food Secu­ri­ty in the Caribbean region. They also wel­comed the hold­ing of the inau­gur­al meet­ing of the Joint CARIFORUM – EU Coun­cil under the EPA in the mar­gins of the Summit.

5. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment agreed that the chal­lenge of Cli­mate Change and the loss of bio­di­ver­si­ty are of par­tic­u­lar rel­e­vance to the wider Caribbean Region and agreed on the need to increase coop­er­a­tion in that field. They rec­og­nize the need for stronger action, and long term coop­er­a­tion that should include per­spec­tives on safe and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, cli­mate-safe paths and reduced cli­mate change vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. Fol­low­ing COP 15 in Copen­hagen, the par­ties desire to reach an ambi­tious, fair and com­pre­hen­sive agree­ment at the Can­cun cli­mate Sum­mit. They con­firmed the organ­i­sa­tion of a high lev­el EUCaribbean con­fer­ence on cli­mate change ahead of Can­cun to be host­ed by the Euro­pean Commission. 

6. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment rec­og­nized the par­tic­u­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of the wider Caribbean Basin to nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, the increased occur­rence and sever­i­ty of these phe­nom­e­na as well as the fact that the Caribbean has been inter­na­tion­al­ly regard­ed as being among those most affect­ed by the impact of cli­mate change and con­se­quen­tial nat­ur­al disasters.

7. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment recon­firmed their com­mit­ment to the recon­struc­tion of Haiti fol­low­ing the dev­as­tat­ing earth­quake of 12th Jan­u­ary 2010. In that regard they agreed to ful­ly sup­port the imple­men­ta­tion of the Hait­ian Government’s Action Plan for Nation­al Recov­ery and Devel­op­ment, which was endorsed at the UN Inter­na­tion­al Donors Con­fer­ence on Haiti, Held in New York on 31 March 2010.

8. The Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment under­lined the ben­e­fit of a con­tin­u­ous and con­struc­tive dia­logue between the two regions and agreed to meet again on the occa­sion of the VII Sum­mit of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment of the Euro­pean Union and Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean in XXX in 2012 or at any ear­li­er date should devel­op­ments in their rela­tions indi­cate the per­ti­nence of such a meeting. 

Source:
Coun­cil of the Euro­pean Union