EU/CARIFORUM meeting tomorrow in Barbados
NEARLY THREE years after the signing of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and Caribbean states in the CARIFORUM group (CARICOM plus the Dominican Republic), the first meeting of their joint Trade and Development Committee (TDC) takes place tomorrow in Barbados. The TDC is one of the established institutions provided for in the EPA. It was ceremonially signed in Barbados on October 18, 2008, in the face of prolonged controversies over completion by the Caribbean of a full EPA, in contrast to an interim agreement opted for by countries in Africa and the Pacific pending consensus on a final accord.
Now, as senior officials of  the CARIFORUM are preparing to arrive in Barbados for the meeting of the Trade and Development Committee, varying concerns  are being expressed about insecurities within Caribbean economies and, differently, about the future of the Caribbean Community’s Single Market and Economy (CSME).
For head of the EPA Implementation Unit at the CARICOM Secretariat, Brandford Isaacs, this week’s meeting of the TDC—for which arrangements were said to be “significantly driven” by the EU’s Director of Trade, Peter Thompson—“will be  a momentous occasion.”
However, it has not escaped attention that the TDC meeting comes at a time when arrangements for CARICOM’s single economy—once hailed as the Community’s “flagship project”—has been placed on “pause” with the intention of “consolidating gains” of the single market component of the CSME, according to Heads of Government who participated in a two-day “retreat’ in Guyana.
Professor Norman Girvan, for instance, author of “Towards a Single Economy and a Single Development Vision”, that provides a “road map” for sequential implementation of the CSME for guidance of CARICOM leaders, thinks that in placing the single economy on “pause”, the Heads of Government  may well contribute to the “sidelining” of the CSME in general by the EU’s strong influence in implementation of the EPA.
The respected regional economist thinks that the EU “is not seriously interested in seeing the CSME completed. Their real interest”, he stressed, “is in the CARIFORUM market and, therefore, in CARIFORUM integration. Article four of the EPA makes this very clear…”
To them (the EU) the CSME and the OECS Economic Union is just a side-show. That is why Regional Preference is so important to the EU and why they had opposed the clause that was proposed by Guyana that in the event of a conflict between the EPA and the CARICOM Treaty of Chaguaramas, the latter shall prevail.
In sharing his perspective during the recent annual meeting in Port-of-Spain of the Board of Governors of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), President Dr Warren Smith, noted that the signing in 2008 of the EPA has added to the “insecurities engulfing Caribbean economies…”
The Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) has reported the CDB President as declaring that the EPA accord signalled “the end of unreciprocated preferential access by Caribbean exports into the EU market, resulting in new insecurities being created as agriculture production, farm incomes and employment declined; small farmers (especially in banana and sugar-producing countries) displaced, as poverty levels rose dramatically, more so in rural communities.
Both the Georgetown-based CARICOM Secretariat and the EU’s Delegation for Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean have issued separate press statements on the joint meeting of the Trade and Development Committee.
Some of the trade  in goods issues scheduled for discussion, said the EU Delegation, include tariff reductions, application for non-tariff barriers for Martinique and Guadeloupe (France’s Overseas Territories), as well as trade in services matters that will include “mutual recognition agreements for architects and engineers; modalities for consultations relating to tourism services and cultural cooperation”.
In its statement, the CARICOM Secretariat recognised that the Trade and Development Committee is the second highest institution after the Joint Council established under the EPA and “is pivotal” to the implementation of provisions of the partnership accord.
Meanwhile, Brussels-based CARICOM diplomats have expressed the hope that the region’s private sector “will raise a strong voice” against measures being taken by the EU at World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations with “third countries” under free trade accords that, they claim, “disregard EPA provisions requiring prior consultations with CARIFORUM countries…”