NOW THAT the European Commission (executive arm of the European Union) has conceded the strength of Guyana’s argument in favour of including in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) a provision for mandatory reviews every five years, the hope is that a compromise could now be reached on strengthening the ‘Draft Declaration’ as it pertains to safeguarding the primacy of the Revised CARICOM Treaty in dealing with conflicts in the implementation processes.

Although the overwhelming number of CARICOM states have already committed themselves to signing the full EPA in Barbados this coming Wednesday, an increasing number of Community Heads of Government, as well as EU member states, are known to have communicated their support for the two preconditions signaled by President Bharrat Jagdeo to authorise this country’s participation in the signing ceremony.

Just this past Friday, for example, while Guyana’s ambassador to Brussels, Dr Patrick Gomes, was pointing to “positive responses from EU member states,” the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerritt, chose to publicly express his “wholehearted support” for the positions taken by Guyana, even as he reaffirmed his own government’s commitment to sign on October 15.

“I respect wholeheartedly the positions of the President of Guyana. His points are justified and there are merits in his arguments and I respect him for that…,” said Skerritt, according to a report by the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).

Earlier, CARICOM’s current Chairman, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, had told the regional media that he was “hopeful for an agreement” to the two specific provisions requested by Guyana for the Joint Declaration (by CARIFORUM and the EU), because they “were reasonable; in the region’s interest; and would help in all to be on board to sign the full EPA…”

Prime Minister Spencer’s own Antigua and Barbuda Government is scheduled to have a national consultation of stakeholders tomorrow to deal with arguments in favour of and against signing the full EPA on October 15.

The absolute deadline for participating member countries of CARIFORUM to sign the EPA is October 31. In discussing differences between the EU and member states of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries at the Sixth ACP Summit in Ghana earlier this month, Head of State took a decision for a high-level troika to meet with the European Commission and EU member states before that deadline with a view to resolving some of the contentious issues.

The lack of cooperation on the part of some CARICOM governments to be flexible in the date for signing has proven advantageous to those in Europe who remain most anxious for the Caribbean to sign off on the full EPA — the only one to have initialed such an accord in December last year — with the evident intention to strengthen the EU’s bargaining power with the African states in particular in the signing of interim EPAs.

However, contrary to a report by the Inter-Press Service (IPS), as appeared in another section of the local media yesterday, the EC is not known to have threatened Guyana with “punitive taxes.” Its top officials are still involved in efforts to conclude the text of the proposed Joint Declaration intended for release to coincide with the scheduled signing ceremony in Barbados this Wednesday.

There is, of course, no guarantee at this stage that unless some new movement is made to strengthen the draft to meet Guyana’s anxiety to preserve the integrity of the CARICOM Treaty in the resolution of emerging conflicts in the implementation of the EPA, that the Jagdeo administration will have a presence at the Barbados signing ceremony on Wednesday.

President Jagdeo has once again repeated that Guyana will struggle to the last moment against signing what his government considers “a very bad deal for CARICOM, not just Guyana, as represented by the EPA in its present form…”

While welcoming the EU’s acceptance of Guyana’s call for “mandatory” five-year reviews of the EPA, he said that all CARICOM leaders should also share their concerns with the European Commission and EU member states about the necessity to avoid giving the EPA precedence over the Revised CARICOM Treaty in dealing with conflicts over implementation of EPA provisions.

The reaffirmed message from President Jagdeo, as reported in our yesterday’s edition, is: “If Europe, contrary to all that it has publicly stated, at various levels, especially at the level of the Council, were to impose tariffs under the GSP on us, then I would have no choice but to sign…”

At stake for Guyana is the threatened loss in revenue of approximately US$94 million annually, starting in 2009. So, in the end, the position is that the CARICOM state that has the most to lose under the full EPA, remains the one to forcefully wage a principled negotiating battle with the EC, with the hope of resolving the stalemate in the interest of Guyana, its CARIFORUM partners, and improved relations with the EU.