The argument about ‘belated objections’ is irrelevant and redundant

Dec 03, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter without a name in SN of November 30, 2008, with the caption “Guyana’s belated objections to provisions of the draft EPA must have taken other CARIFORUM representatives, and perhaps Minister Jeffrey, by surprise”.
President Bharrat Jagdeo was the only CARICOM Head who carried the good fight not just once, but over the life of the EPA negotiations process, exposing its deficiencies. There were also consultations and the issuance of progress reports to the National Assembly in Guyana.
The President and his Government pretty much endorsed Brewster-Girvan-Lewis’ criticisms of the EPA; criticisms that were in circulation quite awhile before CARIFORUM representatives inked the EPA document. And so the argument about ‘belated objections’ is irrelevant and redundant.
The Guyana Government’s concerns with the EPA, among others, are: (1) periodic review of the EPA; (2) preserve the Caribbean regional integration process; (3) insertion of the ‘Singapore issues’; (4) incorporation of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause; (5) no provision to speak to supply-side inadequacies; (6) the lack of a ‘development’ dimension in the Agreement.
Toward the endpoint, President Jagdeo and the Government of Guyana were successful in extracting two substantive Clauses from the European Union’s concessions. And now, the EPA bears two appendicized Clauses as a Declaration; these address the deficiencies of the EPA, in spite of the inflexibility of the European Commission and minimum cooperation among CARICOM Heads in pursuing a Caribbean-friendly EPA.
These Clauses are as follows: Clause # 1: a five-year review of the Economic Partnership Agreement to consider the socioeconomic impact on the Caribbean region and an obligation by the European Union to speak to the impact; to uncover which areas of the agreement and/or their implementation may require amendment.
Clause # 2: the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas to prevail in cases of conflict with the Economic Partnership Agreement; the notion here is to preserve the Caribbean regional integration process.
If we had greater cooperation among CARICOM Heads, perhaps, we could have wheedled more concessions from the EU to benefit the Caribbean region, in addition to the existing two substantive Clauses.
Prem Misir

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