- countdown as dissent grows in Caribbean and Africa

AS BARBADOS proceeds with local arrangements to host the signing ceremony for the full Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), there continues to be uncertainty about how many of the 15 CARIFORUM group of countries (CARICOM plus Dominican Republic) will be represented for the scheduled September 2 occasion.

The majority of Caribbean administrations had signalled at last month’s CARICOM Summit in Antigua and Barbuda their readiness to go ahead with signing arrangements. Similarly, most of the 27 states of the EU are committed to signing.

Even, that is, as rising discontent is being reported among African countries linked to the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) bloc, that favour postponing arrangements for the interim EPAs with the European Commission (executive arm of the EU) to facilitate national/regional consultations with major stakeholders.

However, earlier this week, and following a statement last week by the Head of Delegation of the European Union in Guyana (Geert Heikins), that the EU Council of Ministers has authorised the signature of the EPA with CARIFORUM, the Barbados Government sent out official invitations for the event.

Guyana and Grenada had already declared their non-participation–the first awaiting the outcome of a national consultation of stakeholders arranged for September 5-6; while the latter explained that as a new government (five-weeks-old), it needed time for “an appropriate review of the negotiated text of the EPA.”

The new, six-month old Belizean administration of Prime Minister Dean Barrow has to date avoided any public commitment, but plans on discussing its position on the EPA at today’s regular cabinet meeting.

In Jamaica, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has arranged for the initialled text of the EPA to be laid in parliament this week with a view to having a debate prior to the proposed signing. It is aware that the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) has already expressed reservations about provisions of the accord.

In Trinidad and Tobago, leader of the opposition United National Congress (UNC), Basdeo Panday, has formally proposed to Prime Minister Patrick Manning the postponement of signing the EPA to allow local stakeholders to express their reservations with aspects of the accord.

Since then, Trade and Industry Minister Lenny Saith was reported as saying that “a review” of the EPA was being conducted by Trinidad and Tobago in view of concerns expressed. He did not give any indication of either the “concerns” expressed or the nature of the “review” being pursued.

Neither the Secretary General of the CARICOM Secretariat, Dr Edwin Carrington, nor the Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) Henry Gill, was in a position yesterday (Tuesday) to confirm how many Caribbean governments can be officially identified for the scheduled September 2 signing ceremony.

While both Britain and France are among major countries of the EU Council of Ministers yet to authorise signing of the EPA, it was learnt that they will be represented at the September 2 event at which a development aid package is expected to be announced by the United Kingdom government for the CARICOM region.

There, however, seems to be a disconnect between a number of governments in both the Caribbean and Africa and leading non-government organisations (NGOs) over the need to postpone the scheduled September 2 signing ceremony to permit discussions on a range of dissenting views on the benefits and disadvantages of the EPA in its current form.

At a one-day “reflection conference” in Younde, capital of the Cameroon last week, a group of financial and economic experts presented the results of a study on the budgetary implications of the interim EPA signed by its government, and concluded that it was “one of those monumental economic errors made by a country already in crisis”, according to a report by “Africa News”.

Meanwhile, the Inter-Press Service (IPS) was reporting from Johannesburg this past weekend that Southern African non-governmental organisations have put forward demands to their governments to suspend further arrangements on the interim EPAs with the EU in favour of critical reviews with stakeholders in the context of prevailing fears over the “economic injuries” to result to African states.

Organisations forming the Southern African People’s Solidarity Network (SAPSN) mounted street protests, involving hundreds of activists in the commercial heart of South Africa to coincide with a summit of the Southern African Development Commission (SADC) on Saturday.

The SAPSN, a leading umbrella body of NGOs, would have been aware that the South Africa government has itself so far refused to negotiate an EPA with the EU and that there continues to be increasing demands in other African states for suspending arrangements pending reviews of contentious provisions on trade, services and aid.