HUMILIATION!

Oct 17, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyana has indicated that it will sign the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). While Guyana did not sign with the rest of the region last Wednesday, it will sign before the deadline passes.
The decision not to sign two days ago and the attempts being made to indicate that compromises have been made, which now make it possible for Guyana to sign, is just a way to save face. That way has been found through two clauses added to the agreement.
While there is now the inclusion of the two clauses, these clauses do not in any substantive way make much of a difference in terms of Guyana’s original objection towards the agreement.
The inclusion of the two clauses does not remove the embarrassment and humiliation of having to sign an agreement which our President had said was a bad deal brokered in bad faith and lacking in developmental features.
Guyana has agreed to sign because it has no choice. Firstly, if it does not sign, tariffs would be imposed on our exports to Europe. These tariffs would make these exports uncompetitive and result in massive losses.
They most certainly would have signaled the end of the sugar, rice and rum industries in Guyana, if only because of the loss of a sizeable market, the social consequences of which would have been catastrophic.
Secondly, we have to sign because we could not convince the rest of the region not to ink the agreement. Guyana and Haiti were the only two countries which were opposed to signing.
Having failed to convince its regional counterparts, Guyana’s leadership was faced with a credibility crisis.
We had to sign also because it was clear that Guyana could face serious embarrassment over the matter. One top trade official from the European Union opened a Pandora’s Box when he said recently on BBC Caribbean Report that Guyana had in March expressed its support for the EPA and had requested the assistance for its implementation.
There has been a denial of what the EU official said to BBC Caribbean Report, but the matter is not likely to end there.
Guyana’s case against the EPA was mainly theoretical. It had argued that the agreement would exacerbate the relative inequality of the two regions – Europe and the Caribbean – since the agreement promoted reciprocity in trade relations. The agreement was said to be anti-development.
It was also argued that it would conflict with the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas because the agreements set different liberalization schedules for different parts of the region, thus negating a common external tariff.
It was further argued that there was no social impact assessment done. Guyana had also opposed the inclusion of the “Singapore issues” in the agreement. This was the core of Guyana’s case, a weak one indeed, and one based mainly on philosophical approaches to the negotiations.
The two clauses which we are now told will allow Guyana to sign do not fundamentally address the concerns raised by Guyana. The first clause is purely a theoretical and meaningless caveat which provides that in the event of any conflict with the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the regional treaty takes precedence.
The second clause provides for a review of the agreement every five years, something that in any event is contemplated under the Cotonou Agreement.
These two clauses therefore do not address substantively the concerns that Guyana had expressed as its reason for not wishing to sign.
What these two clauses do is allow Guyana to save face and sign an agreement which remains almost the same as the one which had been railed against. Guyana will thus be signing in humiliation.
For the Guyanese people, many of whom had jumped on the anti-EPA bandwagon, there is an important lesson to be learnt. Never again should they follow their leadership down a blind alley.

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