Pacific delegation leader backs criticisms of European trade negotiato
Updated
Samoa's Associate Minister for Trade, Hans Joachim Keil, has backed criticisms of the the negotiating style of European Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, made by the Cook Islands Foreign Minister. Foreign Minister Wilkie Rasmussen, said the Commissioner took an insensitive approach, with an agenda to divide and manipulate the island nations during key talks in Brussels last November. Those talks saw PNG and Fiji break ranks with other island nations and initial an interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union - an action the two countries felt necessary to protect thousands of jobs in their sugar industry and tuna canneries. In a letters leaked to the media, late last week, Mr Mandelson described Mr Rasmussen's comments as 'unnecessarily offensive' and sought a public correction.
Presenter: Jemima Garrett.
Speaker: Samoa's Associate Trade Minister Hans Jochaim Keil
