Caribbean Set to Sign EU Trade Agreement on 2 September

He said while some have accused CARIFORUM of breaking solidarity with other members of the African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) group, the reality is that Caribbean countries were actually the last to sign any agreement with Europe. CARIBBEAN-TRADE- CRNM says all set for EPA signing on September 2 BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC - The Director General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Henry Gill, says all is set for the September 2 signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe, despite calls for the new trade deal to be renegotiated. He said all the completed documents were already in Barbados, where the signing ceremony will take place. Guyana's President, Bharrat Jagdeo and a number of regional academics have called for the agreement to be renegotiated, but Gill said to do so would be extremely complicated and virtually impossible. The CRNM head has been tight-lipped about which Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries have already committed to the agreement negotiated between the European Union and CARIFORUM - CARICOM and the Dominican Republic. But he said that he believes that Guyana, which will hold a national consultation before making a decision, will be among the signatories. "If its national consultations include the major producers - sugar, rice, fisheries, and forestry products - and on the basis of their input a decision is made, I see no reason why Guyana will not sign because it is in the interest of all those industries to have EPA market access," Gill said. He also warned that if any of the CARICOM leaders refuse to sign the EPA next month, it will cause problems for trade with Europe. "If a country does not sign, I'm afraid that I must say that the likelihood is that will hold up the whole agreement because the way in which the documentation has been prepared, for approval by the European Council, is through indicating which are the signatories of either party," Gill said. "The signatories have been spelt out very clearly on the CARIFORUM side, just as they have been spelt out very clearly on the European side so if there is a change in that, it means that the whole documentation has to be reverted to the European Council and that will take quite some time because you don't convene it at the snap of the finger. "So if I'm correct it means that this can hold up the entire process," Gill added. The newly appointed CRNM head also sought to clear the air on "misconceptions" about the new trade deal, which he believes might be fuelling opposition to the accord. "The difference, however, is that we are the only ones to have concluded a full EPA. All the others concluded interims," Gill said. "It is not that they strategised that they were limiting themselves to an interim; it's that they had not done the work to conclude a full EPA. We had done the work." Gill added that far from breaking solidarity, the Caribbean has been assisting a number of African countries and regions in reaching their trade deals. He said the CRNM had already sent missions to those un-named countries for that purpose and others were scheduled for later this year

Originally published by Caribbean Media Corporation news agency website, Bridgetown, in English 2020 4 Aug 08.

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Story Source: BBC Monitoring Americas