EU pact hit by last-minute revolt
Inter Press Service | 25 August 2008
TRADE-CARIBBEAN: EU Pact Hit by Last-Minute Revolt
By Peter Ischyrion
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, Aug 25 (IPS) — Eight months after congratulating themselves for having become the first region within the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) grouping to conclude negotiations with the European Union on a new trade and economic pact, Caribbean leaders are getting cold feet as the time draws near to affix their signatures to the document.
So far they have not kept to three earlier suggested dates, and it now seems that the Sep. 2 ceremony to be held in Barbados may not take place.
Instead, Barbadian Prime Minister David Thompson has called for an urgent meeting of the 15-member Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders as uncertainly surrounds how many regional states will now sign the agreement.
Thompson has sent a letter to Caricom’s chairman, Baldwin Spencer, who is also the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, expressing concerns about the "untenable inconsistencies" among member states regarding the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) that was negotiated between Europe and the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORM) that also includes Caricom.
The regional leaders’ position is in sharp contrast to the communiqué issued at the end of their annual summit held in Antigua in July.
According to the four brief paragraphs allocated to the EPA, "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, there have been no instructions from the heads of government or from the prime ministerial subcommittee on external negotiations, which is chaired by Jamaica, that such a signing on that date ought not to take place," 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. We doubt very much in our minds that it would be agreed to by the European Commission," he said.
But a Barbados government legislator, James Paul, earlier this month 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.
Carl Greenidge, the deputy senior director of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) that negotiated the EPA on behalf of Caricom, said last week 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 Dec. 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 is not among those countries willing to sign the EPA at present. Like some Caribbean trade unions, academics, opposition parties and non-governmental organisations, Georgetown has been calling for a re-negotiation of the accord and has said it would only sign on after holding public consultations that are scheduled to start after the country hosts the 10-day Caribbean Festival of Arts (CARIFESTA) — the region’s premier cultural festival — which began on Aug. 22. Last week, President Bharrat Jagdeo continued his attack on the EPA, noting that ACP countries had not been in favour of replacing the traditional ACP unit with EPAs and regional groupings.
"We have always resisted this. We thought that this would be problematic because they’re breaking the traditional ACP solidarity that we had, and you know with solidarity comes strength, especially with negotiations and secondly to argue for WTO compatibility, for small countries, developing countries in the world," he said.
"This was contrary to the spirit of successive international agreements which argued that there should be special and differential treatment of these countries in international trade and economic international relations," Jagdeo added.
Caribbean countries signed on primarily due to Europe’s significant negotiating power, which was no match for the Caribbean’s "tiny" economies, he argued.
"If you combine the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of all the countries in our region, it would be less than the assets of a large bank in Europe, so you can imagine how unbalanced, how uneven the negotiations are because you’re not negotiating as two equal partners. They got their way because they’re essentially a bigger power and they can always threaten to cut off their markets," he said.
However, Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and one of the main supporters of the EPA, urged his colleagues to sign because "it is preferable to sign than not to sign".
"I, for instance, I am a right-hander. I will probably put my right hand on my heart and sign with my left hand. What I am indicating by that metaphorically is that one would wish that you had a better quote unquote deal. But you can manage in the circumstances," he said.
In Jamaica, where the Bruce Golding administration supports the EPA, the main opposition People’s National Party (PNP) says it plans to raise serious concerns about the deal when Parliament resumes next month.
And St. Lucia’s Prime Minister Stephenson King, like his newly elected Grenadian counterpart, Tillman Thomas, flatly says he will not sign the deal as it currently stands.
"Based on the advice we have been receiving from several quarters we, as members of the Caribbean Community, are now in a better position to say let us slow down a minute and engage in a further review of the real value of the EPA to the region."
"We are to appeal to the president of France to meet with us and consider some areas of concern and see whether we can get the European Community to understand and support our position," he added.
The Caribbean Policy Development Centre (CPDC) said it welcomed the new cautious approach by some governments.
"CPDC will like to reiterate its call for Caribbean governments to push for the renegotiation of the agreement even at this time, to correct the flaws and the contentious areas within the agreement," it said in a statement.
CPDC Senior Programme Officer Shantal Munro-Knight said that her agency was saddened by the dismissive nature of some regional leaders toward those who are speaking out against the EPA.
"When it comes to engaging our population and to taking on board dissenting voices, our leaders and technocrats are dismissive and insulting. We seemed to have forgotten the true nature of representative democracy. Debate fuels growth, new learning and change and particularly about something so important, such debate should be encouraged not stifled or ignored," she said.
