EPA Special Meeting… Regional counterparts bail out on Jagdeo

Sep 11, 2008 News

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…President says he is willing to go it alone

 

President Bharrat Jagdeo is currently in an uphill struggle with his position on the CARIFORUM-EC Economic Partnership Agreement, which was initialed last December, after Heads of States and Governments of the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) refused to be persuaded and to support his call for the signing of a ‘goods only’ agreement.
This was the general tone at the Sherbourne Conference Centre yesterday in Barbados where matters related to the signing of the EPA were the main focus of two Heads of Government meetings.
The first of the meetings, the Fourteenth Special Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) took place in the morning while the Third Special Meeting of CARIFORUM was held in the afternoon. CARIFORUM consists of the 14 independent states of CARICOM, the Dominican Republic and Cuba.
At the meetings, President Jagdeo reiterated his position that a deal governing the trade of services will swing the pendulum in Europe’s favour.
He pressed for the leaders to unite and pause to further scrutinize the services aspect of the deal. “Europe cannot bring sanctions if we collectively pause.”
Barbadian Head of State, David Thompson, however, debunked Jagdeo’s call saying that time for pausing has ended, adding that “pausing will be thief of time.”
Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding said that he was ready to sign the EPA despite the fact that there were some lingering concerns in his country.
The concerns, however, were not enough, he said, to cause him to not sign.
“Did we get what we want, no…Did we get a good agreement, yes…could we have gotten a better deal …I doubt it.”
He also added that he did not believe that re-negotiating another deal was possible.
Golding also emphasized the dangers of CARIFORUM exports being subject to the Global System of Preferences, and questioned whether the region could afford to have its exports be subjected to 20 per cent duties.
He noted that the region could not withstand the duties. “Those who are saying let’s not sign must address the question of what to do with exports that will be uncompetitive when it attracts the duties.”
Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves noted that the concerns raised by Jagdeo were valid but posited that he would have to sign sooner or later.
The special meeting held in Barbados has chosen to sign the trade agreement, bringing it into full effect.
Recently, the Guyana Government held a public consultation where the decision to support Jagdeo’s position was reinforced.
At that forum, eminent Guyanese statesman Sir Shridath Ramphal had publicly stated that Caribbean governments must heed the voice of reason and pause, review and renegotiate before the region’s fate is sealed by ill-advised signatures that commit to a new era of European dominion.
According to Sir Shridath, at this point in time, the only response now has to be a collective one.
He noted that collectively the stakeholders should put signing on hold until after the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States’ Summit in Accra.
“Then let us, with the rest of the ACP, engage the EU…The EU needs the six EPAs even more than any one Region needs it….Don’t let us sell ourselves short…There will be threats of many kinds and at many levels….But if we have unity among ourselves in the Caribbean and with the rest of the ACP, we will prevail.”
Ramphal in his opening statement to the gathering reiterated that when the then head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) Henry Gill initialed the EPA on December 16 last, he was just authenticating the text as that which had been negotiated, emphasizing that by that act of initialing, Caribbean countries did not become obliged under international law, treaty law (or WTO rules) to sign the EPA in that form, “or at all”.
He noted for ‘consent to be bound’ it requires a further policy decision and a formal step which in this case is a signature. “Moreover, they are not precluded by international law, by treaty law (or WTO rules), from renegotiating that initialled agreement…This much is clear from general international law and more specifically from the 1970 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.”
At that Forum, Karl-Friedrich Falkenburg, Deputy Director-General of Trade of the European Commission, sought to impress upon those present, particularly President Bharrat Jagdeo, that time was running out to sign the negotiated EPA, and that it was a take-or-leave-it offer and that Mr. Jagdeo and others would have to abide with the consequences of the decision they make.
Some of the consequences highlighted during the recently held local consultations are that if there was a refusal to sign the agreement, products being exported to the EU will have to face tariffs that would make it uncompetitive in the EU market.
On the other hand, if the region signs the agreement, it would mean the loss of a significant amount of revenue, given that imported items that attracted a tariff would have to be liberalized.
During the consultations, it was touted that if President Jagdeo was to garner enough support, there may be a possibility that the EU would have to review its position.
However he failed to achieve this.
Jagdeo has long denounced several aspects of the EPA, one such being reciprocity which, according to him, would see the EU being able to bring its services to the region to compete with its local counterparts when, in return, the region did not have any service to export to Europe that could compete there.
“In trade union terms, that would be bargaining under duress.”
Another contentious issue was the fact that European contractors could be bidding for projects on the local scene.

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