7 MAY 2009 - A number of Pacific Trade Ministers, including the Pacific's lead spokesperson for free trade discussions with Australia and New Zealand, will be absent from a regional trade meeting scheduled for this weekend.

New Zealand Trade Minister Tim Groser had invited his counterparts from Australia and 13 Pacific Island Countries to Auckland this weekend to discuss extending the Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) to a regional free trade agreement.

However the absence of lead spokesperson for the Pacific islands on PACER-Plus discussions, the Solomon Islands Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade William Haomae, and Trade Ministers from the Island's biggest economies Papua New Guinea and Fiji, will make it difficult for any consensus decisions to be made on PACER-Plus negotiations.

Pacific Trade Ministers had already been invited to meetings in Brussels this week to join Trade Ministers from Africa and the Caribbean regarding ongoing free trade negotiations with the European Union. Those meetings - the ACP Ministers' Trade Committee and joint ACP-EU Ministers' Trade Committee - were organised well before Minister Groser sent out the invites for this weekend's discussions.

The Auckland meeting was called in the lead up to a meeting of Pacific, Australian and New Zealand trade officials in Vanuatu next week - which will nut out the terms of a 'roadmap' for free trade negotiations under PACER-Plus. The invitation letter from Minister Groser said discussions would "serve to give high level direction to the final meeting of regional trade officials in May". The agenda for the meeting indicates that New Zealand has scheduled a session for establishing a "Ministerial Vision for PACER-Plus".

Coordinator for the Pacific Network on Globalisation, Maureen Penjueli, said the meeting was not a formal meeting of Pacific Islands Forum Trade Ministers, and had a questionable mandate to make decisions regarding free trade negotiations with the Island's biggest trading partners. "How can a subset of Trade Ministers make binding decisions regarding the timeline of PACER-Plus negotiations for example," said Ms Penjueli. "Especially recalling that this meeting is billed as an informal meeting, and that it was organised in haste at the initiative of just one member of the Pacific Islands Forum." She said the Forum Trade Ministers' Meeting, already scheduled for July, was the proper place to make decisions about PACER-Plus.

She said Ministers who were absent were likely to object to the idea that binding decisions could be made in their name.

Ms Penjueli said the timing of the meeting also showed how difficult it would be for Pacific island countries to enter into free trade negotiations with Australia and New Zealand while they continued to negotiate with the European Union at the same time. "The ongoing commitments of our Trade Ministers, and their ministry staff, clearly demonstrate that the Pacific needs more time to prepare for PACER-Plus," said Ms Penjueli.

Australia and New Zealand are keen to launch PACER-Plus at the 2009 Pacific Islands Forum Leaders' Meeting - to be held in Cairns in mid-August. "This timeline is all about the political priorities of the Australian government in particular," Ms Penjueli said. "It certainly has nothing to with the development needs of the Pacific." She said that by asking Pacific Trade Ministers to fast-track PACER-Plus negotiations, Australia and New Zealand would be asking the Ministers to ignore their own officials.

At the 2008 Pacific Islands Forum Leader's Meeting, Pacific trade officials were mandated to prepare a roadmap for possible negotiations with Australia and New Zealand. The draft roadmap, prepared earlier this year, indicated PACER-Plus negotiations could not go ahead until the Pacific had ceased trade negotiations with the European Union, a regional office for a Chief Trade Advisor had been established, national consultations were undertaken in each country, and consultations about the coverage and modality of negotiations were completed. The roadmap gave a detailed timeline for these things to happen, indicating formal consultations would not begin until 2012, with actual negotiations to begin in 2013.

However Australia and New Zealand are reportedly unhappy with that timeline, and will argue this weekend for negotiations to start earlier.

The 'informal' meeting of Pacific Trade Ministers and their Australian and New Zealand counterparts will be held at the Westin Auckland hotel on Friday May 8 and Saturday May 9.