President Jagdeo’s CRNM concerns point to the big picture

Mar 14, 2009 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I want to refer to Freddie Kissoon’s subjective remarks on President Bharrat Jagdeo in Kaieteur News of March 12, 2009. Kissoon uses Jagdeo’s criticisms of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) to explicitly conclude that these very comparisons and criticisms are applicable to the Head of State himself.

Error inflation drives these subjective comparisons. Prior to definitively imputing his inference on the President, Kissoon, first, needs to disprove the notion that no difference exists between the two comparisons; one for the CRNM and one for the President. That has not happened.
And we need to remind readers of the challenging context of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) evolution; and, indeed, the Head of State’s concerns of the CRNM approach in the negotiations; the source of Kissoon’s comparisons and criticisms.

And so, becoming embroiled in these infantile comparisons of anyone, especially when they are laced with error inflation, constitutes a deliberate attempt to discard the efforts of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s resounding success at improving the EPA between the European Union and CARIFORUM. So let’s examine the context of the President’s concerns about the CRNM’s approach during the EPA evolutionary process.

Mounting criticisms of the EU-CARIFORUM EPA were the order of the day. Norman Girvan, Havelock Brewster, and Vaughn Lewis, in a Memorandum titled ‘Problem Areas in the EPA and the case for Content Review’ to the Reflections Group, believed that renegotiation was a must as, once the EPA was in force, it would be hard to amend. They cited 19 areas that made the case for renegotiation.
There were other critics of the EPA, such as, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Sir Shridath Ramphal, OXFAM, hundreds of academics, the Christina Taubira Report of France, including a few CARICOM Heads of State.

And President Bharrat Jagdeo was the only CARICOM Head who incisively exposed the deficiencies of the EPA; this President and Government carried the good fight not once, but over the life of the EPA negotiations process. And numerous consultations on the EPA took place over the years in Guyana, including issuance of progress reports to the National Assembly.
Some of the Guyana Government’s problems with the EPA, among others were: (1) insertion of the ‘Singapore issues’; (2) incorporation of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) clause; (3) no provision to speak to supply-side inadequacies; (4) the lack of a ‘development’ dimension in the Agreement.

But in the end, President Jagdeo and the Government of Guyana successfully extracted from the European Union’s concessions on two substantive Clauses. And so the EPA now carries two appendicized Clauses as a Declaration, to speak to the deficiencies of the EPA, notwithstanding the inflexibility of the European Commission and minimum cooperation among CARICOM Heads. The CRNM did not negotiate these two Clauses. President Jagdeo should receive some credit for this feat. Here are the Clauses: Clause # 1: a 5-yearly review of the EPA 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 EPA; the notion here is to preserve the Caribbean regional integration process.
And for those who conclude that these Clauses are a face-saving device for this Government, let me say that, indeed, they do not grasp the significance of a 5-year review, enabling CARIFORUM to correct any identified deficiency; and also these people may be indifferent toward the sanctity of regional integration.
The above represents some aspects of the context for the President’s remarks on the CRNM. And so, Kissoon’s attribution of subjective and scurrilous remarks on the Head of State, in many ways, therefore, is inappropriate.
Prem Misir