“Niue hands over Chair of the Polynesian Leaders Group Meeting to Tonga(2025-2026)”
GOVERNMENT OF TONGA
MEDIA RELEASE
(9th September, 2025)
“Niue hands over Chair of the Polynesian Leaders Group Meeting to Tonga(2025-2026)”
Honiara, 8 September, 2025:-The Polynesian Leaders Group reconvened its 14th Meeting in Honiara, Solomon Islands on the margin of the 54th Pacific Islands Forum Meetings on 8 September 2025.
The meeting was chaired by the Honourable Dalton Tagelagi, Prime Minister of Niue who assumed the Chair at the meeting of the PLG in 2024 at the margin of the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Tonga.
Leaders conveyed their sincere gratitude and appreciation to the Prime Minister of Niue, for his leadership over the past year, underscoring the importance of inclusion of all Polynesian peoples to the PLG.. Key items discussed included the consensus on procedural matters of the PLG’s charter, terms of reference, membership and the permanent secretariat.
The Meeting was attended by Niue (Prime Minister Dalton Tagelagi), Cook Islands (Prime Minister Mark Brown), French Polynesia – Maohi Niu -Tahiti (President Moetai Brotherson), Tonga (Prime Minister Dr ‘Aisake Valu Eke) and high-level representatives of Leaders from Tuvalu and Samoa. PLG Members and Pacific Islands Forum Associate Members American Samoa, Tokelau and Wallis and Futuna sent apologies as they did not attend the Forum Meetings in Honiara. Observers from the independent State of Hawaii and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community were in attendance.
At the conclusion of the meeting, Leaders agreed for Tonga to chair the Polynesian Leaders Meeting which will reconvene in the next Pacific Islands Forum Leaders Meeting in Palau in 2026 and also a follow-up meeting in the Kingdom of Tonga in October 2026, at the margin of the Meeting of the Committee of Representatives of Government Administration (CRGA).
The last time Tonga hosted and chaired the Polynesian Leaders Meetings was in 2017 in its 7th Meeting held in Apia, Samoa,
-ENDS-
