Sunday 4th October,, 2009

Q+A’s Paul Holmes interviews EU Director for Pacific Relations, Roger Moore.

Points of interest:
- EU is mobilising $3m for Samoa once needs have been established
- “If more is needed, we will find it”
- EU opposes extending sanctions against Fiji to trade: “I have never seen trade sanctions deliver a satisfactory result”
- EU urging “internal political dialogue” in Fiji
- Fijian politicians agree “on substance of reforms necessary in that country”, they just disagree on Bainimarama’s methods
- Pacific Islanders already experiencing “dreadful suffering” from climate change

The interview has been transcribed below. The full length video interviews and panel discussions from this morning’s Q+A can be seen on tvnz.co.nz at,
http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news

ROGER MOORE interviewed by PAUL HOLMES

PAUL The tsunami that followed the huge earthquake under the South Pacific Ocean this week has caused devastation of course, death and heartbreak in Samoa, the destruction of infrastructure in Samoa especially has been catastrophic and New Zealand has leapt into help, the aid is pouring in. Roger Moore happens to be in the region at the moment, he's the European Commission's top representative in the Pacific and he's leading at the moment a delegation that’s been discussing aid in Fiji this week. The EU has committed a billion dollars to the Pacific between 08 and 2013. The delegation is now here in New Zealand for trilateral talks with New Zealand and Australia, between us we're the three biggest donors in the region. We'd have to say your timing into the region was impeccable.

ROGER MOORE – EU Director for Pacific Relations
Yes, yes that was unexpected.

PAUL You’ve come to talk aid, you’ve been in Fiji, you were there when the tsunami came ashore in Samoa, how is the European Union responding to what's happening Samoa, Western Samoa and Tonga?

ROGER Well we have our man in Samoa and he's there talking to the people to find out what they need. We have a recovery expert who's just arrived and he's brought 300 thousand dollars in his pocket to get things started in Samoa yes, water, medical supplies this sort of thing. We're mobilising another three million dollars ready to go once we discover what's really needed there.

PAUL What do you understand is going to be the greatest need in the next few months there?

ROGER In the next few months, immediately obviously it's purely humanitarian, the huge amount of suffering, people are dreadfully injured, people have lost their livelihoods, people have lost their homes, they need shelter, they need water. As we move on then they're going to have to think how are we going to rebuild this, are we going to rebuild it where it was or are we going to rebuild it somewhere else.

PAUL I understand you were originally a construction engineer?

ROGER That’s right.

PAUL Right, so you would have some idea of the size of the infrastructure reconstruction or rebuilding that’s going to be needed.

ROGER I have as much knowledge as anybody else from watching the television footage at the moment. We have people there and the Samoans themselves are going to have to do an inventory to see what's needed. It looks to me to be quite big.

PAUL So is the European Union cooperating with Australia and New Zealand, are working together?

ROGER Yeah, in fact that’s the real reason why I'm here, I'm coming to talk with New Zealand first tomorrow and then Australia and New Zealand, the aid people, and we work very very closely together.

PAUL Much European Union aid is going to be available medium and long term do you think? I mean Therese was saying you know we've got immediate needs at the moment and we've handled that very well and we've responded well. The test will be how we commit long term, I mean they're talking about 50 million dollars for roads alone aren’t they, for reconstruction of roads alone.

ROGER That’s right, that’s right. Well we have this three million dollars which is being put together at the moment, we have a programme with Samoa which is worth 60 million dollars and we will probably be adapting that to the new circumstances, we will take our share if more is needed we will find it.

PAUL You came in from Fiji last night, now you’ve been in Fiji what three or four days. Amnesty International said last month that security forces are quote "increasingly menacing" they said "there is a downwards spiral of human rights, violations, and repression".

ROGER I saw that report.

PAUL What do you understand is happening in Fiji?

ROGER In three days you can't really – what I hear from talking to diplomats – I had a lunch yesterday with the sugar industry, I've spoken to a lot of people in the government, there is a state of emergency, the constitution has been abrogated, there are serious problems in Fiji.

PAUL Did you get a feeling about morale, did you get a feeling about whether things were good or bad?

ROGER I didn’t get a feeling – you know I cover a wide spectrum of countries, I go to places like Somalia, Zimbabwe, I didn’t feel that things were that bad in Fiji.

PAUL You didn’t meet Bainimarama?

ROGER No I didn’t unfortunately, I was to have met him on Wednesday morning when the tsunami struck, but there was a bit of chaos in Suva at that time.

PAUL What did you tell the Fijians, the government representatives you met, about sanctions, about aid, about moving forward?

ROGER What I told them was that in the view of the European Union they need to talk to each other, they need to set in place an internal political dialogue in order to discuss reforms that Bainimarama seems determined to push through, because the strange thing is I've talked myself to political leaders in Fiji and all of them agree strangely enough on the substance of the reforms which are necessary in that country. The problem everybody has is just the way that the Prime Minister is going about it.

PAUL So most people you speak to support Bainimarama's reforms if not his method?

ROGER Nobody wants to support Bainimarama's reforms, everybody wants to support Fiji's reforms. It's the reforms wanted by the people of Fiji that we're ready to support, there's a coincidence between the two.

PAUL A week ago the EU extended sanctions against Fiji for another six months yes? So you're holding back about 62 million dollars in aid and something like 235 million dollars to restructure the Fiji sugar industry?

ROGER Something like that.

PAUL So you're holding money back, but we find out that European countries are still buying Fijian sugar, how does that sanction work?

ROGER We don’t put trade sanctions on them, we have no quarrel with Fiji, we have no quarrel with the people of Fiji, we have a contractual arrangement for providing aid, and the aid goes to the government. The government is in breach of an agreement that we have with them, so we can't deliver that aid.

PAUL But we do have a quarrel with Fiji don’t we, and world sugar prices at the moment are at their highest since 1981, Fijian tourism has been hit, it's well down – refusing to buy Fijian sugar might just put the lid on the sanction mightn’t it, might send the message?

ROGER I don’t think so, I really don’t think so. I've never seen trade sanctions really deliver a satisfactory result.

PAUL So why would you put sanctions on, sanctions like holding back the money, sanctions like not supporting the restructuring of the Fijian sugar industry?

ROGER Withholding of a gift is hardly a sanction of course, it is the non delivery of a gift, there's a difference between putting on a sanction and the non delivery of a gift. The point is that the funds which we make available to Fiji are given in the context of an international agreement. International agreement requires Fiji to respect certain common values that we all have, democracy, respect for human rights…

PAUL Sure, but we want to make changes happen. So are New Zealand and Australia wrong do you think with their sanctions, with their trade sanctions?

ROGER Do they have trade sanctions on? I was in Nadi the other day I saw lots of – they weren't European tourists, they were New Zealanders there.

PAUL That’s right New Zealanders are still going.

PAUL Just one more thing on Fiji, Bainimarama complained that the United Nations is no longer using Fijian troops for peacekeeping duties. Was that mentioned to you?

ROGER Yeah I've heard that. I believe the situation is that they're no longer taking on new troops, the existing troops are continuing, they're not taking on new troops.

PAUL When are the Europeans going to drop their pernicious agriculture production subsidies?

ROGER Ah, that’s the reform of the CAP, that’s going full speed ahead, the CAP is there is a serious reform in the CAP underway, surely you know that, and that is going full speed ahead.

PAUL Explain that to us.

ROGER The problem is that the implementation of the CAP is causing great social upheaval in Europe, I think you’ve been through a similar thing in New Zealand where …

PAUL The CAP?

ROGER Yes the Common Agricultural Policy. The Common Agricultural Policy, so our agricultural policy is reforming the agricultural sector and it's causing great suffering at the level of the small farmers, as happened I think here, causing depopulation of rural areas, and what is happening at the moment is that the timing of certain elements of the CAP is being put back just a little bit, but the reform is going full speed ahead, these are details.

PAUL At the speed of the withdrawal of the ice cap?

ROGER Ah well that’s a worrying speed at the moment.

PAUL Quickly on climate change, the Europeans are now talking proposing 30% European reduction of emissions by 2020 at Copenhagen, we are going 10 to 20% is there agro about that, are we seen to be carrying our weight or is that not enough, if anyone ever thinks about it?

ROGER You know the important thing is to come to an agreement in Copenhagen, this is really serious, I was in Fiji, I was talking with Pacific Islanders and the suffering that they are going through already is dreadful, and what's going to happen is catastrophic. We just can't let this go on, we have to come to an agreement in Copenhagen and we have to do something in order to help the people who are affected by the pollution, to come to terms with it.

PAUL I thank you very much Roger Moore for you time.

ENDS

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