Jagdeo provided the opening for public debate on the EPA

Oct 14, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I refer to a number of inaccuracies in Kaieteur News of October 13, 2008. When it comes to the matter of the President’s recent trip to China, the media’s inaccuracies reach new magnifying heights.

The China trip was not a State Visit; the President participated in the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, and met with a number of world business leaders.

The President engaged in a bilateral meeting with the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, Professor Klaus Schwab. President Jagdeo also met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Tianjin, and Mr. Zhang Ping, Chairman of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission.

The Girvan-Brewster-Lewis Memorandum, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Sir Shridath Ramphal, OXFAM, hundreds of academics, the Christina Taubira Report, including a few CARICOM Heads of State, among others, have heaped huge concerns on the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

In addition to these concerns, President Bharrat Jagdeo, in an effort to strengthen the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), enjoins two substantive clauses for discussion by the European Union (EU); especially as these clauses carry humongous end results for the people of the Caribbean region, and are not merely for Guyana-specific.

These are: (1) the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas to prevail in cases of conflict with the EPA; the notion here is to preserve the Caribbean regional integration process.

While the EU agreed that it would consider the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas in the implementation of the EPA, it stopped short from saying that the Revised Treaty is supreme.

And (2) a 5-yearly review of the EPA to consider the socio-economic impact on the Caribbean region and an obligation by the EU to speak to the impact.

At this time, there is some proclivity on the part of the EU to accede to periodic review. Comprehensive and not a diluted inclusion of these two clauses, however, will explicitly enhance the EPA.

And those who have followed the birth of the EPA from the EU’s Green Paper in 1996 must know that this President has shown a determined alacrity and a substantive stock of knowledge to speak to ways of improving the EPA.

And so, it is unfortunate and perhaps a tragedy that some commentators today, applying mainly anecdotal evidence, continue to issue definitive conclusions on the EPA, an immensely technical matter with huge implications for the Caribbean region.

And some of these commentators need to revisit the EU-ACP relations, in order to do justice to any discussion on the EPA.

Professor Kelsey commented on the EU-ACP relations thus: “It displayed the colonial arrogance that has underpinned Europe’s relationship with ACP countries for centuries.

Lomé had provided trade preferences and aid within a framework of economic and political relations that suited Europe’s interests at the time. Now those interests had changed, the ACP was expected to fall into line.”

These are only some of the underpinning historical principles of the EPA that will seal the fate of CARIFORUM countries.

President Jagdeo, in vehemently publicizing his concerns over the EPA, provided the much-needed opening for public debate and improvements within the EPA; periodic reviews are a done deal! The reviews will address some of these concerns.

And, indeed, President Jagdeo and Guyana have the support of hundreds of academics, OXFAM, the French Taubira Report, UNECA, among others, and who knows, maybe other CARICOM Heads down the line.
Prem Misir