Date with the EU
Editorial
Stabroek News
March 24, 2004
In just over three weeks, on the 16th April, Caricom will begin negotiations with the European Union (EU) on a successor agreement to Cotonou. Cotonou is the last in the series of agreements between the African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) group of countries which began with the first Lome Agreement in 1975. These agreements which are of fundamental importance to the economies of the former colonies which make up the ACP aim to preserve their traditional markets in Europe and ensure the provision of large scale economic assistance.
These forthcoming talks are one of the three sets of exacting negotiations in which Caricom states are currently engaged, the others being with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). However the negotiations opening in Jamaica may well be in practice the only game in town.
In Geneva, the WTO Ministerial negotiations remain bogged down and are likely to remain so for this year, not only because of the intrinsic difficulty of the issues but because of certain major national events which make for rigidity in negotiating positions. They are the US Presidential Elections, the Indian national elections and the likely reorganisation of the European Commission. India is a key member of the G-20, the new powerful group of developing states which emerged at Cancun.
In the case of the FTAA as such there is beneath the level of rhetoric, a similar situation of near deadlock. The recent meeting in Mexico of officials from all participating states ended abruptly as a result of the continued refusal of the US and Canada to include farm subsidies in the negotiations, the principal demand of Brazil and other Mercosur States.
However the negotiations to begin shortly in Jamaica will pose new difficulties as they will be fundamentally different from those which have gone before, from Lome to Cotonou. Hitherto the Caribbean negotiated as part of the ACP group and the resulting agreement covered all the ACP countries. But since Cotonou, the EU has changed its stance, now insisting on region-specific agreements. In keeping with this new approach separate negotiations between the EU and Central African states and West African states respectively began in October 2003. Now it is the turn of the Caribbean. Such regional agreements will be known as Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
Caricom was wary of this separatist approach. It was the Caribbean which had put together the ACP grouping with its foundation conference being held here in Georgetown. The diplomatic solidarity with Africa clearly held out bargaining advantages. However, despite the EU's new approach, the integrity of the ACP as a group seems to have been preserved in some measure. In launching the new round of negotiations in Brussels in September 2002 it was agreed with the EU that the negotiations should be in two phases. The first phase would take place at the ACP-EU level and would promote the principles and objectives for the region specific negotiations, as with the Caribbean in the second phase.
Moreover there will be a number of mechanisms at the ACP-EU level which would keep track of the regional negotiating processes. One such mechanism will be an all-ACP-EC Technical Monitoring Committee. In addition it was agreed that ACP-EC Ministers will meet from time to time to take stock of the regional discussions.
Over the years the previous ACP wide agreements and the commodity protocols had provided assured access and preferential prices for the traditional export commodities until the recent impact of WTO Trade Rules. The European Development Fund (EDF) had likewise been a major source of economic assistance. While it is said that the same basic principles which informed Cotonou will obtain in the case of the new EPAs there will clearly be difficult negotiations ahead on the specific problems of Caricom which member states cannot leave wholly to the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM).
The principles this agreed in the first phase include inter alia that the EPAs
- must be instruments for development and must take account of the development policy objectives of the region.
- must support and not undermine regional integration initiatives.
- will maintain and improve the current level of preferential access into the EC for ACP exports. However, these trading arrangements will be reviewed in particular with regard to compatibility with WTO rules, "with a view to safeguarding the benefits derived therefrom, bearing in mind the special legal status of the Sugar Protocol" (this principle is of crucial importance to Guyana at a time when it would be unrealistic not to perceive that the sugar market is threatened not only by the action taken by Brazil, Australia and Thailand invoking WTO rules but also by EU internal agricultural reform which responds to the demands of developing countries in the WTO negotiations).
- special and differential treatment should be provided to all states including in particular vulnerable small and island countries.
It is of special interest to Guyana in view of the recent breakthrough in the EU fish market that it is envisaged that the EPA will aim to negotiate regional fisheries agreements.
These and other principles (outlined in an 8 page document) which were negotiated over the years since Lome certainly respond to Caricom's needs and vulnerabilities. They are expected to provide the basis for the regional Economic Partnership Agreement now to be negotiated beginning in Jamaica.
However, the EU it should be noted conceives of the EPA in a different way as weaning away the ACP states from their dependence on the EU market. In an information/propaganda paper prepared by the European Commission to justify their new approach to the negotiations it is argued that "Unilateral preferences do not tackle the main problems in the ACP countries. This is reflected in the share and composition of EU imports from the ACP countries : in 2002, only 3% of EU exports originated from the ACP against 6.7% in 1976. 65% of imports consisted of raw materials. Also only ten products made up for nearly 60% of EU imports from the ACP."
Against this background the European Commission further argues that "the EPAs respond to the need for change; they take a new more comprehensive approach, tackle all barriers to trade mostly through reinforcing regional integration and addressing supply side constraints and form secure, WTO compatible trade arrangements."
The Caricom objectives may be focussed on urgent short range objections while the EU objectives are fixed on the long term but they are clearly reconcilable.
Alas there are other factors which will in all likelihood make the negotiating context uncertain. A fortnight after the negotiations in Jamaica open, ten new states, mainly in eastern Europe, will join the EU. They are all at levels of development and will bring into the EU huge demands on resources. Moreover it is already clear that the Madrid bombings, in terms of recent history the first large scale terrorist act in Europe, will have for Europe, as 9/ll had for the USA, traumatic effects, leading to a re-think on interstate relations.
On the Caricom side there is perhaps no time in which the integration movement has been in greater disarray. In addition to the Haitian crisis and the strained relations between major states over territorial sea demarcation there is the ominous postponement for the second time of the essential consultation on the Single Market and Economy.
Nevertheless as we noted earlier the negotiations with the EU are the only worthwhile game in town. Vital interests are involved.
It was agreed in the first phase negotiations between the ACP and the EU that both sides will intensify the involvement of non-state actors, notably business representatives, social partners and other representatives of civil society, in the EPA process. Guyana must send an effective broad based delegation to Jamaica.