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Friday, April 16, 2010
After a year of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe: What benefits for the Caribbean?
By Sir Ronald Sanders:
The European Commission (EC) will be holding a symposium on April 22 and 23 on the year-old Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) collectively and 15 Caribbean countries individually.
There is, as yet, no indication that Caribbean governments or the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat will be holding a similar exercise.
It has to be assumed that each of the governments that signed the EPA has long established units both to implement its terms and to monitor its effects on individual economies.
Therefore, relevant authorities in each of the Caribbean states as well as the Secretariat of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should be able to provide a list of the benefits that have been secured from the EU under the EPA. Our publics had been told that we would benefit not only from the exports of new goods and commodities to the EU but also from the provision of a wide range of services. Additionally, Caribbean companies would have the right of establishment in the EU.
Against this background, it should be fairly easy for the competent authority in each country to provide information related to just a few matters such as: what preparations and actions have been taken by exporters of goods and especially services to access the EU market; what are the investment plans by companies to establish in the EU market; and how easy or difficult are their plans looking for access to Europe.
There is a very important clause in the EPA which allows for a review of it within 5 years of its coming into force. That clause was hard fought for, and came about only because Guyana’s President Bharat Jagdeo had the courage to insist upon it even after other Caribbean governments had agreed to sign the EPA without such a review mechanism.
In defence of several Caribbean heads of government, it should be noted that they were reluctant to sign and many did so only after their crucial exports of bananas and sugar and some manufactured goods (from Trinidad and Tobago for instance) were threatened by the EC with a higher tariff in the EU market.
But, if the EPA is to be properly reviewed – and it should be subject to such a review on an annual basis – it is essential to monitor its implementation and to gather information that will inform an examination
However, informed sources in the region say that some governments have done very little about implementation and others have done nothing at all.
What is known for certain is that even though Caribbean countries and the EU are supposed to be ‘partners’ under the EPA, the EC has denounced the Sugar Protocol causing Caribbean countries to lose their preferential price for sugar; the EC has agreed a new trade regime for bananas with exports from non African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that will decimate what is left of the banana industry in the Caribbean; and come June 20, the EC will renege on an undertaking to the Caribbean rum industry to help finance restructuring and marketing while at the same time reducing tariffs on competing rum from several Latin American countries.
Not surprisingly several Caribbean businesses have lamented the benefits to them of the EPA so far. For example, Ramesh Dookooh, President of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association, observes that “Guyana earns much of its revenue on traditional exports, including rice and sugar, both of which are not covered by the EPA’s duty- and quota-free. Thus, the private sector in our country has its reservations about the economic opportunities available under the EPA”. Nonetheless, he is hopeful. He says: “Wider consultation with stakeholders and a stronger focus on the developmental dimension of the agreements could make the EPAs even more effective.”
Unfortunately, there has not been much evidence of consultation. The experience of sugar, rum and bananas indicate that the EC now takes the Caribbean for granted. After all, they do already have a signed full EPA from the region, so why concern themselves overly about the Caribbean.
The EC also controls the purse strings. They have knotted those strings on the purse of the 8th European Development Fund (ED) from which money for restructuring and marketing the rum industry should have come, and its daunting bureaucratic procedures halt many Caribbean countries in their tracks from getting money to implement the EPA under the 10th EDF.
An EU fund, managed by the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), is reported to be exhausted with no sign of being replenished.
Undoubtedly, the global financial crisis – as well as the failures of regional financial institutions – has battered Caribbean governments. All CARICOM countries have been preoccupied with saving their economies from shocks including worsening terms of trade especially with the EU – even Guyana though it had 3.3 per cent growth in 2009.
But, Caribbean governments cannot afford to let attention to the EPA with the EU slip. The European Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, recently told German business people: “The economic crisis has temporarily halted the process of globalisation. But let there be no mistake: this process is very likely to pick up again with renewed vigour. The EU must put in place the conditions to benefit from it to the full”. He is looking to a “successful conclusion” of the global negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) “to boost Europe's GDP by around 45 billion Euros”.
Commissioner De Gucht will measure a “successful conclusion” very differently from the Caribbean, but the region should have its own collective plan of action and its own definition of success on which it should collaborate with like-minded countries.
The implementation of the EPA and the procuring of benefits from it have not been evident so far, and the EC has not been helpful to the Caribbean in the process.
When Caribbean leaders meet their EU counterparts for a Conference on May 17th in Spain, they should be fully briefed and prepared to tell European leaders of their dissatisfaction and propose means of making the EPA deliver on the ‘partnership’ it promised.
April 16, 2010
caribbeannetnews
Saturday, November 28, 2009
ACP Countries: Sidelined by Europe again?
The European Union (EU) has not included in the Lisbon Treaty a crucial article that was a feature of treaties between the EU and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states. The Lisbon Treaty is the new "constitution" of the EU and it will replace the previous treaties that guided the policies of the EU and the work of the European Commission (EC).
Representatives of EC have offered reasons for this omission which might have had a ring of credibility had the Caribbean not been put through the threats and demands that characterized the negotiations leading to individual Caribbean countries signing up to an unequal Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU.
It is difficult for skeptics to take the EC at its word. Indeed, since the EC unilaterally denounced the Sugar Protocol leaving Caribbean sugar producers without a market that the Protocol had guaranteed, and since the EC further unilaterally amended the preferential terms under which Caribbean-produced bananas entered the EU market leaving banana farmers in dire circumstances, there is every reason to be ultra-cautious of actions by the EU and its Commission.
What is not clear is why the ACP countries have not protested at the omission of the article which they were entitled to do, and which they were urged to do by at least one activist lawyer in Brussels where both the EC and ACP secretariats are located.
It has to be assumed that the ACP representatives had good reason for not howling publicly in protest and that, at some point, they will let their publics know why they did not. On the other hand, it may very well be that they did protest but were rebuffed by the EC, and, again, they chose not to let their publics know that, once again, raw power trumped moral obligation. Then, it could be that the ACP representatives chose to do nothing at all on the basis that since the EC has unilaterally denounced what the ACP thought were other legally binding agreements, there was no point in even raising the issue, since the EU, at some point in the future, might abrogate an article in their own treaty if it did not suit them. And, the ACP would be able to do nothing about it just as they did not make a legal challenge to the denunciation of the Sugar Protocol.
To be fair to the EU and the EC, my previous paragraph is pure speculation. It may very well be that no representation was made by the ACP to the EU/EC by representatives of the ACP and therefore, the EU/EC had no reason for regarding any omission of the ACP relationship as an issue.
As background to all this, it should be pointed out that an activist lawyer in Brussells, Joyce van Genderen-Naar, wrote in March 2004 pointing out that the Article which "makes reference to the ACP countries in the previous EC/EU Treaties had been omitted from the text of the proposed Lisbon Treaty that replaces them".
She said, paragraph 3 of Article 179 of the provisions for Development Cooperation in the current EC Treaty states that: "The provisions of this Article shall not affect cooperation with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the framework of the ACP-EC Convention".
Van Genderen-Naar went on to argue that "Article179, paragraph 3, refers to the special relationship between the EC/EU and the ACP-countries, which is the oldest and largest form of cooperation between Europe and countries from the South". She contended that historical bonds "between Europe and the ACP-countries give Europe a special responsibility for these countries, which should not be forgotten and should be a part of the next Constitution for Europe. This responsibility is even more urgent, because after 37 years of cooperation 40 of the 79 ACP-countries still belong to the poorest countries in the world. Out of the 48 poorest countries in the world 40 are ACP-countries". (The full text of her presentation can be read at: http://www.normangirvan.info/naar-acp-disappearance-from-lisbon/).
Very few in the ACP countries would seriously argue with van Genderen-Naar's contention.
She advised the ACP "to make an official request to the European Commission and Members of the Convention (representatives of the European Parliament and Member States) to insert a provision concerning the ACP-EC-Cooperation in the new Constitution in view of the special relationship between the EU and the ACP, historical bonds, responsibilities and mutual interest, as agreed by EC and ACP in Article 55 of the Cotonou Agreement" which says: "The objectives of development finance cooperation shall be, through the provision of adequate financial resources and appropriate technical assistance, to support and promote the efforts of the ACP States to achieve the objectives set out in this Agreement on the basis of mutual interest and in a spirit of interdependence".
The EU is redefining itself. They are describing the Lisbon Treaty as more than a Charter; they say it is the EU Constitution. Further, they have appointed a President of the EU and a common Foreign Minister. Beyond this deepening of their relationship, it is clear that the majority of the 27 nations in the EU feel no responsibility for the former colonies of a handful; many of them believe that the EU's obligations are to the development and prosperity of its own member states.
If there is no reference in the Lisbon Treaty to the ACP countries, the shift in Europe's attitude to them - evident in the unilateral denunciation of contracts and in the tactics of threat used in the EPA negotiations - will be confirmed. So, too, will be the timidity of the ACP in exercising power that can come from joint action.
The ACP must find the strength to speak with one voice again; to resist divide and rule tactics; to eschew empty promises of aid; and to fund its own institutions particularly those which interact with the EU. If the ACP countries remain mere supplicants without demonstrating a readiness to stand up together for themselves, then they will be omitted to their detriment from more than the EU's new arrangements.