To Sign or not to Sign

The EPA, a trade agreement between the EU and CARIFORUM, is due to be signed on September 2 in Barbados. However, there seem to be uncertainty as to the actual signing of the document.
At a seminar organized by various trade unions and held on Thursday this week at the Chedi Jagan Research Centre in Guyana, President Bharrat Jagdeo announced that national consultations on the EPA will be held on September 6 and 7. Jagdeo who had publicly stated that Guyana would not be signing on to the EPA until national consultations on the issue were completed said that the EPA was flawed, was not in fact a development agreement, that the EPA would undermine the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and would supersede it.
Jagdeo, the featured speaker at the seminar, declared that there were troubling times ahead, noting that were the agreement in its present form to be signed, in future negotiations with Canada and the US, they would demand similar concessions since a precedent had already been set and this would be “catastrophic” for the region.
Meanwhile Carlos Wharton, Trade Consultant with the Barbados Manufacturing Association called the EPA a watered down version of what the Caribbean was privy to under the Lome and Cotonou arrangements, watered down to really short sentences or in some cases removed altogether. In a comprehensive review of the EPA, Wharton said the effects on Barbados from the market access provisions will be great.

Considering that signing of the EPA is now scheduled for September 2, Wharton pointed out that there is great need for more private sector participation with the construction of the trade rules. Admitting that there has been participation by some groups with the EPA negotiations, he insisted that there needs to be a lot more.
The St Lucia government Monday said it would delay signing the EPA. According to a news report, Prime Minister Stephenson King said that his administration’s new position follows a recent statement made by the French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as the need for the CARICOM countries to further review their position.
Prime Minister King said that based on the advice received from several quarters we, as members of the Caribbean Community, are now in a better position to slow down and engage in a further review of the real value of the EPA to the region.”
But Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery said that if any one country does not sign, that will hold up the whole agreement. The signatories have been spelt out very clearly on the CARIFORUM side, just as they have been spelt out very clearly on the European side. If there is a change, the whole documentation has to be reverted to the European Council and that will take quite some time because it does not convene at the snap of the finger.
It is still unclear exactly how many countries will actually sign although there has been agreement in principle to the accord, which member states initialed in December 2007. (R.M.)