The EPA is now a fact of life

Feb 21, 2009 Letters

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Dear Editor,
In May 2008, I gave a presentation entitled “The Cariforum-European Union Economic Partnership Agreement: A Work in Progress” to the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Foreign Relations, and followed this with a similar presentation to a Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry seminar on EPA implementation in June 2008.

At both places and elsewhere, I argued that in my view, the EPA is a work in progress in the sense that it has longitudinal objectives and a monitoring mechanism to see that they are achieved.

I argued that even with the best will in this unstable world, we cannot hope to foresee all the things that will go wrong in the decades before this agreement expires and that therefore, a top priority at this stage is to ensure that we have in place an effective monitoring mechanism that will quickly respond to problems as they arise.

The recent global financial crisis has strengthened this point. But of course, this is not to say that such changes as we believe are immediately required should not be sought.
Much has been written about the EPA. Some of it has expressed genuine concerns but much consisted of little more than self-serving, hyperbolic generalities.

But the fact is that we have now signed the EPA and next week the Regional Meeting of the ACP/EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly will be in town (KN:12/02/09), so I wish to restate the above position; the implementation of which I believe is crucial if our region is to be properly protected and reap such benefits as the EPA offers.

According to the EPA it: “is rooted on the Fundamental Principles as well as the Essential and Fundamental Elements of the Cotonou Agreement…. [and] shall build on the provisions of the Cotonou Agreement and the previous ACP-EC Partnership Agreements in the area of regional cooperation and integration as well as economic and trade cooperation. … The Parties agree that the Cotonou Agreement and this Agreement shall be implemented in a complementary and mutually reinforcing manner.”

Importantly, in keeping with the spirit of the Cotonou Agreement, at a pre-negotiation meeting in 2003, “Both sides also concurred that at the end of the EPA negotiations, no ACP State participating in an EPA should be worse off than it is currently.”

Since whether or not any state is worse or better off can only be properly judged with the passing of time, I take this not only as a static, but also as a long term requirement.

Among many other things, the Cotonou Agreement states that: “The Community and its Member States, of the one part, and the ACP States, of the other part … hereby conclude this Agreement in order to promote and expedite the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP States, with a view to contributing to peace and security and to promoting a stable and democratic political environment.

The partnership shall be centred on the objective of reducing and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy.”

The Cotonou section on Development Strategies is rather more detailed, stating, inter alia: “… ACP-EC cooperation strategies shall aim at: a) achieving rapid and sustained job-creating economic growth, developing the private sector, increasing employment, improving access to productive economic activities and resource, and fostering regional cooperation and integration;

b) promoting human and social development helping to ensure that the fruits of growth are widely and equitably shared and promoting gender equality; ….” The question then arises of how is the EPA to be monitored and adjusted to assure compliance? Article 5 of the EPA states: “The Parties undertake to continuously monitor the operation of the Agreement through their respective participative processes and institutions, as well as those set up under this Agreement, in order to ensure that the objectives of the Agreement are realized, the Agreement is properly implemented and the benefits for men, women, young people and children deriving from their Partnership are maximized. The Parties also undertake to consult each other promptly over any problem arising.”

The main institutions of the EPA are:
· A Joint Cariforum-EC Council to supervise the implementation of the Agreement. It is to be generally responsible for the operation and implementation of the Agreement and monitoring the fulfillment of its objectives.

· A Cariforum-EC Trade and Development Committee composed of senior officials, which is to assist the council. Any Party or signatory Cariforum state may raise with the Committee any issue related to the application of the Agreement or the attainment of its objectives.

· A Cariforum-EC Parliamentary Committee as a forum for members of the European Parliament and the Cariforum states legislatures to meet and exchange views.

· A Cariforum-EC Consultative Committee to assist the council to promote dialogue and cooperation (to encompass all economic, social and environmental aspects of the relations between the EC Party and Cariforum states as they arise in the context of the implementation of this Agreement) between representatives of organisations of civil society, including the academic community and social and economic partners.

It is important that these monitoring mechanisms be properly conceived and financed if the region is to keep track of the EPA implementation process and respond in a timely and effective manner.
In the discourse on the EPA, our parliamentary representatives should be seized of this imperative and opportunity, and leave their European colleagues in no doubt that multifaceted support from the EU will be required if this venture is to succeed.

They should also make clear to their EU counterparts that success will also depend upon the extent to which the EU intends to operate the EPA as a real “partnership”. Our past experience with European high-handedness, for example on the issue of the “Sugar Protocol,” does not bode well.
Nevertheless, the EPA is now a fact of life that, with our partner’s support, we intend to do our utmost to make successful.
Henry B Jeffrey

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