11 May 2009
Radio Australia Interview - Pacific Beat program, interviewer Jemima Garrett
Subjects: Informal meeting of Pacific trade ministers, PACER Plus, Fiji
CREAN: The meeting was very important in having discussions in a collective sense about the way forward. You might remember that with Bob McMullan, a few weeks ago, I visited four of the island nations to address their concerns face-to-face, but they were one-on-one discussions. This meeting was all of the countries represented. I think we made some important progress, because we cleared a lot of misunderstandings, we got agreement in principle, because it was not a formal meeting. It's not until the trade ministers actually meet in June, in Samoa, that they will be making recommendations in terms of the leaders meeting in August.
GARRETT: Will Australia's prime minister be able to launch the formal PACER Plus negotiations in Cairns as you had been hoping?
CREAN: Well, that's a collective decision for the Cairns leaders, but bear in mind, last year when they met in Niue, they said they wanted the talks to commence, the negotiations to commence by the end of this year. What we've been trying to do in the meantime is to address a number of the concerns. I think we're progressively doing that but we'll keep doing it. This meeting was important because we needed to talk to people in a group and we needed to do it in an informal basis, so that there was not the pressure to try and finalise something on the spot.
I was very happy with the outcome of the meeting. I think there was a good collective spirit to want to progress it. There are a number of issues that need to be resolved - the establishment of the office of chief trade adviser. We made some important progress in that regard.
The Secretariat was there, a number of the concerns the countries had about the need for consultation we sought to address, but we also made the point that what we are seeking is a commitment to commence negotiations, not to actually conclude them. The conclusion will only be a function of how well the talks go. But there is nothing to consult about if we have not commenced anything. And there is not much point putting in place an office of chief trade adviser if we are not going to have anything to negotiate about.
So given the fact that some issues still need to be resolved, I think they can be and I have come back positive from the meeting.
GARRETT: So you weren't disappointed that you did not get a specific timetable for speeding up negotiations?
CREAN: It wasn't intended that this meeting gave us that timetable. The leaders in fact have given us a timetable. Our task is to make sure that we discharge adequately our responsibility to the leaders.
GARRETT: This was the first meeting from which Fiji was excluded since being suspended from the Forum. Fiji is the economic hub of the region. How can you have a successful closer economic relations agreement with the Pacific, without Fiji?
CREAN: Well, I don't think you can. You can't have a economic arrangement, a capacity-building and trade liberalisation agreement in the Pacific, without Fiji in it. I think we all recognise that. But Fiji have chosen to effectively exclude themselves at official level from these discussions. What we've got to do is to find means by which Fiji is kept informed and that was an issue that was also discussed at the meeting. That is something that will be further discussed, but clearly it is a key issue for leaders to consider when they meet in August.
GARRETT: Well, if Fiji is unwilling to have elections before 2014, does that mean that PACER Plus is dead in the water until then?
CREAN: No, I don't think that means that at all. I mean I don't concede the 2014 timetable on their part and I am sure that everyone is trying to do as much as they can to ensure that that's brought forward.
[ENDS]
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