Former UWI Chancellor and chief Caricom trade negotiator
Sir Shridath Ramphal is against it.
So, too, are former UWI Vice Chancellor and trade negotiator
Sir Alistair McIntyre, together with other Caribbean economists,
including Norman Girvan, Havelock Brewster and Clive Thomas.
The same position is held by the Governments of Guyana and
Grenada, together with trade union and civil society groupings
in the Caribbean: ditto for Opposition parties and even, possibly,
some within the European Union itself, including French President
Sarkozy.
The “it” is the signing, at the end of this month,
of a so-called Economic ‘Partnership’ Agreement
(EPA) with the European Union, comprising former colonial
countries Britain and France, together with other European
countries.
Why delay?
‘Partnership’ or ‘hold-up’?
It has been pointed out that this EPA agreement has not involved
significant consultation—even with Caribbean parliamentary
opposition parties, far less with civil society—with
perhaps the exception of “big” business in the region.
As Ramphal and McIntyre have been pointing out—and they
have long been part of Caribbean trade negotiations—the
Caribbean has historically led the ACP group in terms of demands
made, but we are now at the “back of the class.”
Most other ACP countries have decided to only “initial”
interim agreements or not to sign any! By the end of last
year, for example, only the Cariforum countries (Caricom plus
the Dominican Republic) had initialled a “full”
EPA.
Eighteen African and two Pacific states initialled “interim”
EPAs and 42 ACP countries did not even initial EPAs!
This EPA is a successor to prior EU agreements negotiated
with African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
The EU alone decided (hence the use of “partnership”
in quotation marks) that it would no longer accept such common
negotiations and would treat separately with each regional
grouping.
A July 2008 report of the European Parliament itself on the
“development impact” of the EPA admits: “Technical
weaknesses and mistakes have slipped into the schedules due
to the high pressure exerted by the (EU) Commission to finalise
agreements.”
This view has been reinforced by a report of French MP Christiane
Taubira, commissioned by French President Nicolas Sarkozy
after he assumed the EU presidency in July, which condemns
the ”tactics...pressure, paternalism and threats employed
by the (EU) Commission to impose its point of view and interests.”
Among European Union members, it is recognised that countries
that lag behind others should benefit from special development
assistance: eg, Ireland, Greece.
By contrast, French MP Taubira has echoed the criticism by
Girvan, Brewster, Thomas, McIntyre et al; of the absence of
a development component in the EPA and made the radical proposal
that the entire “basis for the negotiations should be
re-thought, so that there is a greater emphasis on social
and economic development.”
EC risks
Although the proponents of signing emphasise it is to meet
a deadline set by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the
EPA includes agreement on more issues than have been settled
at WTO negotiations!
The islands of the Eastern Caribbean are probably most at
risk, in the short run.
On the one hand, there is still a significant trade with the
EU, where the OECS countries have little “wriggle room,”
for example, in terms of the threat to remove already diminishing
preferential tariffs for bananas.
On the other hand, the OECS countries derive a significant
share of their government revenue from taxing imports.
The EPA requires their removal, on the grounds that they are
“trade distorting.” It is an absurd requirement
that can be satisfied by removal of such import duties where
there is domestic OECS production competing with imports (likely
to be 0.001 per cent of all imports!)
The Caricom country that can best provide leadership is Trinidad
and Tobago. Given the oil and gas boom, we are very much in
a position to stand up to the EU.
Jamaica also has some capability here, but is compromised
by its own economic conditions, including significant debt
problems.
However, governments in both countries seem to be repeating
their performance in the early 1990s, when they were willing
to abandon Caricom in favour of joining NAFTA individually.
In the longer run, however, T&T and Jamaica probably have
more to lose.
(More on this next week).
