In setting the stage last week for a critical evaluation of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and CARIFORUM (Caricom plus the Dominican Republic) I presented a schedule listing 15 “contentious planks,” on which the agreement is premised. As indicated then, I shall be assessing these in the coming weeks. However, before embarking on this task, it is imperative for readers to be able to situate the analysis in the context of some disturbing observations which arise out of recent historical experiences of economic arrangements between the EU and Caricom.
Antecedent arrangements
The first of these is that the EPA was originally envisaged as the successor arrangement for trade as part of the Cotonou Agreement (2000-2020). The Cotonou Agreement was preceded by four successive Lom