Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of International Development Alexander De Croo signed today a new five-year cooperation programme with the Republic of Guinea.

In 2019 and 2020 the EU fish processing industry will continue to import raw material for further processing from non-EU countries at reduced rates or duty free. The Council today (11/12/2018) adopted a regulation opening autonomous EU tariff quotas (ATQs) for certain fishery products for the years 2019 and 2020, and providing rules for the management of these quotas.

The coconut industry in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean should soon be receiving a further boost. That is because the 11th European Development Fund (EDF) will be financing a second coconut project in the region.

On 11 December 2018, the Council endorsed the agreement reached with the European Parliament on the EU budget for 2019. The total commitments are set at €165.8 billion, which is an increase of 3.2% compared with the 2018 budget as amended over the past months.

Foreign ministers discussed EU - African Union (AU) cooperation in view of the first inter-Summit EU-AU ministerial meeting which will take place on 21-22 January 2019 in Brussels. The meeting will cover three main themes: political aspects (peace, security and governance), economic aspects (investment, trade and skills) and multilateralism (strengthening cooperation in support of a rule based global order).