European Parliament
-24-27 October: Plenary Session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg
European Council
- 26 October: European Council
Council of Ministers
-27/28 October: Justice and Home Affairs Council
ACP Group
-25 October: Committee of Ambassadors
-26 October: W/G on the Future Perspectives of the ACP group
Polish EU Presidency
-25/26 October: European Migration Network Conference

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Michel Cramer is Project Director at the Investment Development Consultancy (IDC). For the ACP Secretariat, he conducted a report on SME financing together with his colleague Charles Vuylsteke. In this interview, Mr Cramer talks about the main challenges for SMEs to obtain finance - and the main solutions to overcome the challenges. CTA also conducted a video interview with Carmen Cristina Alvarez, Executive Vice President of Banco BHD in the Dominican Republic.

For the fourteenth year in a row, the European Commission convened its humanitarian partners for their Annual Conference in Brussels on 18 and 19 October. More than 350 participants from the partner organisations were expected, making this a gathering of the world's top humanitarian professionals.

On 15 July 2011, the ACP Secretariat had brought different stakeholders together for a workshop on SME financing. As a result of the meeting, the ACP Business Climate facility (BizClim) asked Investment Development Consultancy (IDC) to deliver a report about the challenges that SMEs in ACP countries are facing with regard to financing. On October 13-14, the High-level panel reconvened at the ACP House in Brussels to discuss the preliminary findings of the consultants’ report.

The 3120th Council meeting on Agriculture and Fisheries held in Luxembourg on 20 October 2011 adopted a decision to authorise the Commission to open negotiations on behalf of the EU for the renewal of the protocol to the fisheries partnership agreement with Guinea Bissau. The existing protocol expired on 15 June 2011. A new Protocol was initialled that would cover a one-year period until 15 June 2012. The Commission services therefore wish to open new negotiations in November 2011.