The Government is to make a strong plea to the European Union to continue the “GSP Plus” trade concession for Sri Lanka’s garment exports despite claims to the contrary by senior officials.


To undertake a major diplomatic push, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed a four-member ministerial team on Friday. It comprises Export Development and International Trade Minister G.L. Peiris, Disaster Management and Human Rights Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, Justice Minister Milinda Moragoda and Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama.


He told the four ministers during a meeting at Temple Trees on Friday that none of them would be named to head the team. “You can consider yourself co-chairs and work as a team,” he said in an apparent reference to Ministers and officials working at cross purposes over the GSP Plus issue and making different statements, sometimes contradicting each other.


President Rajapaksa said he was hopeful Sri Lanka could persuade the EU to continue the GSP Plus facility. “Don’t portray one being superior to the other. All four must work as a team and give me results,” he told the ministers.


The immediate task for the Ministerial team will be to jointly formulate a response to the EU’s three-member expert panel report. It had examined “the implementation of certain Human Rights Conventions in Sri Lanka.” In its report the panel has made severe strictures on the Government over matters relating to human rights, media, judiciary, the military and the police.


Next month, the European Union will take a decision on the expert panel report. It would thereafter come up for ratification at a meeting of European Union Foreign Ministers in December. If the facility is withdrawn, it will take effect only after a grace period in June next year.


President Rajapaksa was angered by remarks made by Export Development Ministry’s Secretary S. Ranugge to Reuters news agency that “the report is very adverse and GSP Plus is very unlikely.” He had added that “If the report is favourable, you can keep hope. The reaction of the EU is not that favourable.” In this backdrop, The Sunday Times learnt, the post of Secretary was offered to a high ranking serving military official. However, he is learnt to have declined it.


Outgoing Foreign Secretary Palitha Kohona had rapped the EU for its stance. He had said in an interview with Britains Guardian newspaper that the EU should consider whether it was interested in the past or the future. "Hundreds of thousands of people, especially women who work in the export sector, will be impacted in order to punish Sri Lanka for apparent human rights violations," he said. "This smacks of a cynical approach to the problem by the European Union".


He said that Sri Lankan goods could find new markets in Asian economies. "We can handle [the loss]. Western countries should remember that economic power has shifted from the west to the east. New markets open up in the east. Our friends China, India, Japan, Korea, Iran … a whole range of countries [can help]."