The Economic Partnership Agreement negotiated between the European Union and Cariforum came into force on January 1, 2008.1 have not, I confess, read all thousand pages of its main text, appendices, annexures and schedules. But I hope trade officials, finance officers and businessmen throughout the region do study them, because in these multitudinous pages you can be sure are booby-traps and time-bombs waiting to spring and explode as time goes on and we should all be prepared.
It would be futile to complain and expect any EU sympathy if and when horrors emerge in future to threaten some company’s or industry’s viability or even some vital national interest. This is a done deal, treacherous fine print and all.
I have no doubt that our negotiators worked desperately hard and with utmost dedication to get the best possible deal. But in the end what happened is that the European Union imposed with an iron fist two brutal ‘facts of life’ which dictated what had to be agreed.
First, we had to abandon the special and differential treatment for vulnerable developing countries embodied in the successive Lom
