Regional leaders who attended the Caricom Heads of Government Meeting
GEORGETOWN, Guyana (GINA): Just back from the 14th Special Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government meeting in Barbados where he stood alone in his stance against the current form of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between CARIFORUM and the African Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) countries, President Bharrat Jagdeo Thursday explained his position at the forum during a press conference at State House.
Reminding the media that Government, other Guyanese and international experts on the agreement had extensive discussions on the issue during Guyana’s national consultation last week, he said Guyana’s team left with a strong sense of purpose and a clear understanding that the agreement does not meet the development aspirations of the region’s people.
The President then underscored that even now that the other Caribbean countries, except Guyana and Haiti have decided to sign on, he is not convinced that the agreement will impact positively on the Caribbean nations now or in the future.
“After the agreement is signed by the countries in question…they would start putting in place arrangements to bring the agreement into effect and countries across the region may not see any immediate change in their circumstances, but the impact will be felt over the longer term and that is what I fear. I fear that…people will go back to business as usual and that the next generation will face the burden of this agreement. The agreement has altered significantly our thinking on several issues,” he firmly stated.
The Guyanese Leader then outlined some of the concerns Guyana has with the agreement. They are listed as follows:
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| L-R: Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson, Antigua-Barbuda Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo and St Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. GINA Photo |
The CARICOM and other small States have in the past used two main approaches to defend their interests-multilateralism and regional integration. These, the President said will be undermined with the implementation of the EPA in its current form
Multilateralism-due to their small sizes and the fact that they would not be able to individually make an impact in the international arena, the Small States collectively approach multilateral institutions, especially those that are democratic such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organisation(WTO). During this approach, each country has a vote and would usually have their views heard and taken into account for the crafting of international policies, be it trade, economic arrangements or politics. This process would now be undermined by the EPA.
Another aspect of multilateralism which will be undermined by the EPA is ACP solidarity. The President reminded that there have been calls for ACP solidarity to be rebuilt. He explained that CARICOM countries could have waited on the outcome of the upcoming ACP meeting in Ghana in October before the signing decision was made. Thus, they could have had better coordination with the five other countries that are in a similar position with CARICOM. President Jagdeo believes that those countries are negotiating more carefully and negotiating better agreements.
“But we sought not to do that. We are in a hurry and the hurry I think is dictated by the pace that the European Union (EU) has set,” he asserted.
Regional Integration and cooperation in the economic sphere allows for a larger economic space for the small countries’ businesses and would give them some economies of scale. Thus, if the countries have functional cooperation in international negotiations, they attend to them as a bloc, negotiate and have better results. In this way, they protect their interests. According to the Guyanese Leader, this will be undermined as well.
Singapore Issues-It was explained by the President that there are several issues regarding what has been agreed to in the deal, including the issue of the region agreeing to negotiate the Singapore issues. These were a few years ago dropped from the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) agenda after developing countries argued that they would not be beneficial to the developing countries of the world.
“So, the developing countries of the world fought the developed countries of the world to get these issues off the agenda-Government procurement, competition…trade facilitation are just a few of these areas that we have now committed ourselves to in this agreement. Once Europe has us agreeing to these issues, even if the commitments are not deep in these areas, they can legitimately go back to the WTO and argue that since countries are prepared to put this in bilateral engagements, now we can put it back on the multilateral agenda,” he explained to the media.
The President expressed fears that this may have been the intention of the EU from the beginning and that the agreement may not have been speeded up because the markets of CARIFORUM countries represent huge opportunities.
The MFN clause-President Jagdeo believes that the MFN (Most Favoured Nation) clause in the agreement will affect CARICOM’s cooperation with south-south partners and south-south cooperation has been a feature in development economics for decades. He said some South American partners are very important and the MFN clause will now force CARICOM to extend to Europe the same treatment that it extends to large partners to the South.
“Guyana sits on the border with Brazil. Guyana may be interested in having a better agreement with Brazil than it has with the EU because of its proximity, because of our special circumstances. This agreement undermines that approach.”
The Guyanese Head of State noted further that since all of the CARICOM States have agreed to different liberalisation schedules, they will not have a Common External Tariff (CET) which has been an essential part of CARICOM’s integration process.
“From the time the Treaty was established…we agreed to establish a free trade area in CARICOM,” he explained.
The EPA, he said will now result in CARICOM having a CET only in 2035 after the agreement has been fully implemented.
President Jagdeo stated that during Guyana’s National Consultation he requested answers from the European Commission’s Deputy Director General of Trade, Karl-Friedrich FalkenBerg as to whether the EC was willing to put in place a clause in the EPA which would stipulate that should any of the provisions of the EPA conflict with those of the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, that the latter would take precedence. He noted that this was not done.
“They have not done that. We didn’t even request it as part of CARICOM. We have not requested that. So, that is very critical because, in the EPA, we have sought to define this agreement in its relationship to the Cotonou Agreement to the WTO, to the IMF. So I ask why not define its relationship to the revised Treaty of Chaguaramas?” he argued.
As to comments by some CARICOM Leaders that reconsidering segments of the deal and delaying it in the interest of CARICOM, would be old and socialist thinking and expressed fears by the Leaders that the developed world may not assist the region in the future, President Jagdeo explained that though they may be right in some ways, this should not weaken the region.
“We should never be ashamed of this and some people are so seduced, so enamoured by the rhetoric of free trade and new liberalism, some of our policy advisers….they feel ashamed if they fight to protect the interest of this region because it doesn’t accord with some priority of the developed world or they may be seen by the developed world as being backward,” he said.
He argued that the developed countries on the contrary, fight to protect their interest unashamedly.
“The USA subsidises its agriculture although it’s the biggest economy in the world and it has no qualms about doing that. It protects its interest, the interest of its farmers. Japan, the second largest economy of the world in nominal terms has some of the highest tariff barriers for agriculture products into their markets. The EU gives hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to local protection so they’re not ashamed of protecting their interests. They’re not ashamed of going against the spree of neo-liberalism, which says we shouldn’t subsidise, but we’re ashamed,” he said.
The Guyanese Leader expressed his intention to continue fighting to protect the interests of Guyana and its people as well as the region even though Guyana may be one of the biggest losers.
“Of all the countries in CARICOM, we face the highest tariff, not the tariff itself but the quantum of money that our products will have to pay to get into Europe if this agreement is not concluded properly and if the GSP regime is imposed on us. So, we should be in the forefront of the group wanting to sign because if we sign on today ... we’d protect that interest, so we’d avoid losing the largest sum of money for our products. Why is it that Guyana is saying ‘don’t sign the agreement in its current form?’ Because we feel that the interest of the region is compromised in many ways,” he asserted. |
