Delegates to the 79th session of the Council of Ministers of the ACP were told they must speak with one voice in trade negotiations with the enlarged EU. There was no room for dissent.
They represent 70 of the 79 ACP countries; and will join their counterparts from the EU in the 29th session of the ACP-EU Council of Ministers, also in Gaborone, on Thursday and Friday.
"This is a critical moment in our partnership with the EU," Botswana Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Mompati Merafhe said, officially opening the session.
"The EU has just been enlarged from 15 to 25 members; and the implications of this for the ACP countries are not yet known.
"The mid-term review of the Cotonou Agreement is about to be launched, and all ACP countries are launching starting to negotiate Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the EU. We have to be assured that the enlarged EU is responsive to our concerns.
The enlargement should lead to increased unity of purpose and intensify cooperation between us." The EPAs will, by the end of 2007, replace the economic provisions of Cotonou, which the ACP countries see as favouring the developed world. The EU has agreed there are imbalances and, divided into six groups, the ACP countries will negotiate separate regional agreements.
"It is critical we manage these EPA negotiations carefully to ensure the existing trade arrangements are not in any way weakened." Merafhe said.
The preservation and full implementation of the special and preferential treatment for ACP countries should be firmly entrenched in the future trade regime.
"This calls for unity of purpose amongst ourselves, we should not allow these negotiations to sow seeds of discord or disunity among us," he said.
The EPAs are not being negotiated at either the ACP session or the ACP-EU session, but separately.
These sessions will, however, note progress and discuss relevant issues in general terms.
At a later media conference, Merafhe said the less wealthy EU newcomers might not be as responsive to the needs of the ACP group as were the older, established and often colonially experienced, members of the EU.
"We are concerned that we may find some of the resources now allocated to us now used to empower the incoming members of the EU, because not all of them are as well endowed as the previous 15 members of the organisation," he said.
"We do not know what the attitude of the incoming members is going to be.
Some of the older (15) members of the EU have always had colonial connections, and there is a lot of sympathy for the cause of those countries (former colonies).
We wonder if the new members can have the same sympathies." - Sapa
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