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EPA TRADE AGREEMENT: To sign or not to sign? |
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Written by Peter Richards
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Monday, 01 September 2008 |
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Page 1 of 2 PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, – At the end of December last year, none of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries, with the exception of Guyana, had envisaged problems in signing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that had been negotiated with the European Union.
The regional leaders had strongly defended the accord that had been negotiated by the Barbados-based Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) on behalf of CARIFORUM which comprises the 15-member CARICOM grouping and the Dominican Republic.
In fact, the leaders were quick to adopt the phrase made popular by the late Dominica prime minister Dame Eugenia Charles, that "bad elections are better than no election at all", with regards to the political situation in Haiti, by indicating that although there were concerns about the EPA, it was better than nothing.
Now, eight months after congratulating themselves for having become the first region within the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping to conclude negotiations with Europe on the EPA, some Caribbean governments appear to be having cold feet as the time draws near to affix their signatures to the document.
Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson has called for an urgent meeting of CARICOM leaders as uncertainty surrounds how many regional states will now sign the agreement scheduled for Barbados on September 2.
Thompson has sent a letter to the CARICOM chairman, Baldwin Spencer, expressing concern about "untenable inconsistencies" among member states regarding the EPA.
His letter underscores the division that has emerged since the regional leaders met in Antigua for their annual summit last month.
The brief reference to the EPA in the communiqué noted that "several of them (had) expressed readiness to sign".
Last week, Barbados gave an emphatic "yes" to signing the agreement in September.
"Our position is that we are proceeding,” said Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Business Minister Christopher Sinckler. "We believe that after three to four years of intense negotiation the option of opening up that agreement to renegotiation at this stage is just not a feasible option."
But earlier this month, a Barbados government legislator, James Paul accused regional stakeholders who brokered the EPA of failing their people by agreeing to a "bad deal".
"We were prepared to sit down and listen to the garbage coming out of Europe about free trade without really examining what they were doing," he told participants of a CARIFORUM-EU review meeting.
However, Carl Greenidge, the CRNM deputy senior director told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that regional states that do not sign would not be able to derail the implementation of the new trade deal.
"If one (CARICOM) country chooses not to sign at all, and they persuade the European Union that they don't have the intention of signing, the regulation that the European Union passed on December 20 requires that that country be taken off the list," he said, explaining that the country would also be excluded from any of the institutional arrangements.
Guyana has long indicated that it was not prepared to sign the accord in its present format. Like some Caribbean trade unions, academics, opposition parties and non-governmental organizations, Georgetown has been calling for a renegotiation of the accord and said it would only sign on after it holds public consultations.
The Bharrat Jagdeo government says these consultations will begin after the country hosts the 10-day Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) – the region's premier cultural festival - which began on August 22.
But Jagdeo has continued his attack on the EPA, noting that ACP countries had not been in favor of the replacing the traditional ACP unit with EPAs and regional groupings.
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