– Havelock Brewster
It appears that Guyana will be signing the controversial Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU after all.
A statement last evening from the Government Infor-mation Agency in the name of economist, Havelock Brewster said that a declaratory amendment to the EPA due to be signed in Barbados today paves the way for Guyana to append its signature.
President Bharrat Jagdeo has in recent months opposed the signing saying that he would prefer a goods-only agreement because of the flawed nature of the agreement. He got no support on this within Caricom and in the end Guyana was the only member of CARIFORUM to say it would not sign the EPA. President Jagdeo then said that if two pre-conditions were met he would sign. These were that the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which underpins Caricom would have supremacy over the EPA should any conflicts arise and in relation to matters of regional integration and that the EPA would be reviewed every five years.
It is unclear why last night’s statement was not issued in the name of President Jagdeo or the Government of Guyana. In the statement, Brewster, a Guyanese, said “Despite the intransigence of the European Commission, and the failure of CARICOM partners to cooperate with Guyana in addressing the glaring shortcomings of the CARIFORUM- European Union Economic Partnership Agreement, the Government of Guyana has succeeded in getting two important improvements made to the Agreement, through a Declaration to be appended to it”.
He said these cater for :
■ A mandatory evaluation of the costs and other deleterious effects of the Agreement in five yearly periods so as to determine where the terms of the Agreement and/or of their application need to be amended; and
■ Some degree of protection for CARICOM as it proceeds to develop the Single Market and Economy, given that the EPA prematurely incorporates policies and measures that have not yet been developed and/or adopted within CARICOM itself.
These protections and the mechanism for revision of the EPA will now permit the Guyana Government to be a party to the EPA to be signed on October 15, Brewster asserted.
These points are variants of what President Jagdeo had been seeking from CARIFORUM and the EU.
Brewster said that the President had argued from the start that Guyana would not be a signatory to the Agreement unless forced to do so given the substantial losses that the country would incur due to the punitive tariffs that would be applied to its exports.
Brewster noted that the President proceeded therefore to seek the cooperation of other CARICOM countries in getting the EC to amend the most harmful provisions, or lack of provisions, in the Agreement. “Regrettably, the CARICOM partners failed to respond positively to his requests to do so, even though these changes would be in the interests of all”, Brewster, a former Guyana Ambassador to the EU, said. He pointed out that Guyana had long warned of these harmful provisions, including among others:
■ the weak or non-existent development dimension that was promised as the centre-piece of the so-called Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union;
■ the curtailment of Caribbean development policy-spaces;
■ reneging on commitments in respect of the WTO negotiations;
■ a number of unsatisfactory features in relation to the provisions on Services and WTO-Plus issues like investment, intellectual property rights and government procurement;
■ the give-away of the Most Favoured Nation status;
■ the absence of any mechanism for evaluation of the cost and other effects of the Agreement , and commitment, if need be , to revision of the terms.
Brewster lamented that without support from the Caribbean Community it has not been possible to get all these issues substantively addressed now. Further, an initiative via the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries for a Presidential engagement with the European Union, to be organized by October 31, on such issues has been ignored by CARIFORUM.
“The Declaration therefore, while it does not address upfront all the issues, ensures that there is adequate protection to ensure that harmful effects are detected, arrested and corrected periodically. It is unquestionably an important concession secured from the EC, for CARICOM as a whole, and one that Guyana can live with”, Brewster added.
The EPA in its current form was also opposed by other eminent Caribbean personalities including Sir Shridath Ramphal, Norman Girvan and Dr Clive Thomas.
Meanwhile in an interview with BBC Caribbean on Monday, European Commission trade policy advisor Dougie Brew said no one would force a country, that was not ready, to sign the EPA. He said that as far as the EU was aware, every CARIFORUM country was going to sign today.
Commenting on the two pre-conditions, Brew said there were ongoing discussions with Guyana, but as far as he was aware “things are going well.”
Asked what the repercussions would be if Guyana did not sign the EPA, Brew said, “that is an issue primarily between the President of Guyana and the region. Guyana was one of the very strong supporters of the regional EPA.
They wrote to us in March of this year supporting the EPA saying it was a good deal and asked for help in the implementation. If they changed position now, well that is something we regret but we will deal with that when the time comes. But at the moment we are talking to Guyana and the indications are that they will be there on the 15th and that they will sign.”
Last week Jagdeo, in an interview with NCN Television had said that if all went according to plan, he may sign the EPA. He said the EU had agreed to a mandatory periodic review of the EPA to assess its socio-economic impact on Cariforum states, but had “watered down” the first pre-condition “to say that in the implementation of the agreement, they will take account of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas,” which he said was slightly different from a commitment to the revised treaty being supreme.
