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Islands investigate union

South Pacific island states are investigating setting up a EU-like grouping to help the mostly impoverished nations pool their scant resources, top officials said yesterday.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, the chairwoman of the 16-nation Pacific Islands Forum, said yesterday "a vision for the Pacific for the 21st century" is emerging from the "Pacific Plan" report issued by a panel of experts set up last November.

The group began a three-day meeting in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, yesterday, to finalize their initial report to the Forum's 16 heads of government.

The forum's new secretary-general, former Australian diplomat Greg Urwin, said the proposals were "groundbreaking" for the traditionally slow-moving region.

The "Pacific Plan" suggests that "with some effort and goodwill we can deepen the cooperation across the region. I think there are quite a number" of such areas for broad cooperation, Urwin said.

"It strikes me what they have probably got in mind is the way the EU slowly developed from a set of practical measures into something rather broader," he added.

"It's widely recognized we've reached a very particular point in the Pacific's history generally that a number of things do have to be looked at afresh," Urwin said.

Although no details of the scope of a possible Pacific islands union have emerged, it would likely be far more powerful than the Pacific Islands Forum, a slow-moving bureaucracy that initiates plans to assist the development of the small island economies.

Led by a former Papua New Guinea premier, Sir Julius Chan, the experts panel worked against a background of a region in turmoil.

Most of its small nations are addicted to foreign aid, have populations who are dwindling as they head to bigger countries in search of jobs, once-pristine environments slowly submerging in waste and low-lying coastlines vulnerable to the threat of rising water levels.

Regional powerhouses Australia and New Zealand are equally concerned, fearing the impoverished region is an arc of instability that could harbor terrorists.
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