The jitters set in early. By Sunday, a copy of a Sun story had been faxed from the European Parliament's media unit to Mauritius. Photocopiers hummed across Port Louis, and soon everyone knew the headline: "Fury as Euro MPs jet off to Paradise."
It turned a typical tabloid focus on Glenys Kinnock, and concluded with a quote attributed to "a Brussels insider" - "with temperatures in the 70s and rum punches all round, it will be difficult to convince taxpayers it is worthwhile."
The "it" was the 26th joint assembly of the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific states (ACP). The MEPs, the NGOs, translators, officials and various others were caught between volcanic rock in the Indian Ocean and a decision which was to some extent out of their hands. The 26th assembly was a "home" fixture for the 70 ACP countries, and theirs was the proposed location.
Another difficulty was posed by the accepted fact that when "armpit" (i.e., less desirable) venues are actually selected, attendance can and does suffer. And if they decide to hold their meeting on a paradisal island, the inevitable accusations of junketing will go up. The first half-serious words of Niall Andrews MEP, a politician who has always been able to take a ribbing, when he noticed the presence of The Irish Times on Sunday were: "You're not here to write `colour', are you?"
It's all rather a pity, really. Much good comes from the meetings and from the continued efforts - and serious spending - of the EU to help the ACP states with their development, infrastructure and human rights problems. The appreciation of the ACP delegates was palpable throughout this week's meeting, which was remarkable for the sheer effort that went into its myriad meetings, committees, reports and press conferences.
It was clear from the downright unease and frenetic lobbying of specific states with less than perfect human rights records that EU criticisms and disapproval are taken extremely seriously.
The choice of Mauritius was inspired, since there can scarcely be a more shining example to the less successful ACP countries than the island, which is now the Indian Ocean economic powerhouse. A volcanic outcrop with little more than sugar-cane when it achieved independence 30 years ago, and situated 1,200 miles off the African coast, it now enjoys virtually full employment and 5 per cent annual growth rates.
It is no longer a monocrop economy, with manufacturing (largely textiles) making up a quarter of the GDP and more than half a million tourists visiting last year.
Even more startling to the outsider is the evidence on all sides of racial and religious harmony. There are the descendants of the French and British colonisers, the African slaves who worked the sugar cane until the abolition of slavery in 1835, the Indian indentured labourers who took over the plantation work, as well as the Chinese. Hindu, Muslim, Christian coexist with grace.
The last colonisers were the British, remembered with genuine fondness by the islanders, and English is the official language, but French is spoken by virtually everyone; and a musical Creole is the language of normal discourse.
The elements of the Mauritian pot-pourri which drew most laudatory comment from both ACP and EU representatives, however, were the rock-solid commitment to the democratic way as well as the absence of heavy-handed state surveillance or abuse of its citizens.
That was not the happy situation of certain African states since the previous ACP-EU assembly. By the end of the week Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo (Brazzaville) and Nigeria had had their collective wrists slapped, in some cases with the vociferous approval of neighbouring states. The doughty Mrs Kinnock, object of the Sun's sneering, was in sparkling form versus the Nigerians, who were asked to release seven journalists arbitrarily arrested.
Another high point was the admission of South Africa as a full ACP member, with full effect from June when the country begins to benefit from preferential trade agreements under the EU's Lome Agreement. It was the economics of Lome, of sugar agreements and banana protocols, of the OECD's Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) and the World Trade Organisation's rulings on trade preferences which perhaps raised most ire and spleen in the contributions of delegates.
Most immediately Lome IV, which expires in February 2000, requires the next phase of negotiations to begin this autumn. As the framework for trade and development aid relations between the EU and the 71 ACP states, it has taken on even more significance for the developing countries in the wake of the GATT agreement, the increasing globalisation of world trade and the general tendency to dismantle protective arrangements; and because of the continuing incompatibility of measuring economic performance in terms of competitiveness on external markets at a time when poor countries have pressing development priorities.
There is much concern throughout the ACP membership that the EU may be about to stray down the path of economic righteousness, and that vulnerable ACP economies will suffer.
That vulnerability and even powerlessness were echoed in the words of Mr T.D. Mogami (Botswana), at the final press conference on Thursday, when he confessed to being frustrated at the slowness of the next phase of the Lome ratification. Lord Plumb was even more honest when he told The Irish Times: "We are not the powerhouse, we are the body politic of 86 countries. We are not actually in the end the negotiators."