Jagdeo prepared to sign goods-only Agreement with EU
By Stanford Conway
Editor-in-Chief-SKNVibes.com
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President Bharrat Jagdeo
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BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – AS CARICOM Heads of Government will be meeting in Barbados tomorrow (September 10) to discuss the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union, Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo, has signalled his intention of signing a goods-only agreement.
News coming out of Guyana states that on Thursday last, President Jagdeo said he is prepared to sign a goods-only EPA with the European Union, “even if it means doing it alone”.
Jagdeo was at the time among a nine-member panel, which included Deputy Director of Trade, European Commission, Karl-Friedrich Falkenburg, that addressed participants at a one-day national consultation on the Cariforum-EC EPA held at the Guyana International Conference Centre, Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara.
According to Stabroek News, Jagdeo said Guyana was prepared to enter into a full EPA with the EU after it was determined what the implications would be, and this would be his argument on the issue when the Heads of Government meet in Barbados tomorrow.
Media in Guyana reported that Jagdeo’s announcement was well received by the participants, including members of the academia, representatives of the private sector, organised labour, religious bodies and producers of agricultural products as well as providers of goods and services.
Stabroek News noted Jagdeo reiterated that the current agreement did not support the development aspirations of the region and the only reason why Guyana would sign onto it was because of the threat of tariffs and the General System of Preferences. He also declared that Guyana had a lot to lose because it was among the largest exporters from the region to the EU of rice, sugar and rum. ~~Adz:Right~~
Stabroek News also stated issues that were of concern to Jagdeo included good faith negotiations, which he claimed the EU lacked, based on its unilateral denunciation of the sugar protocol and the absence of an assessment of the social impact the EPA would have on the region.
Other issues, the newspaper said, included how much funding would be available for adjustment and aid development; whether the EPA would conflict with regional integration efforts and impact negatively on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.
The African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Heads of Government Summit is scheduled to be held in Accra, Ghana on October 2, 2008, and it was advised by Sir Shridath Ramphal, a former Head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery, that Jagdeo does not sign the Agreement until the Summit concludes.
Jagdeo however informed that he would not be attending the Summit because of an engagement in China, but would send a prepared statement with his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
According to Stabroek News, he also told the consultation he did not know whether the CARICOM Heads would buy his suggestion not to sign the EPA, but to sign onto a goods-only agreement, or whether they would wait until after the ACP meeting to do so.
“I will champion that. It is up to civil society to speak about this too because when governments alone speak about this they are caught in the middle. You have your networks in the region. Share with them some of the concerns here,” he told the gathering, adding that they “have a sense of what the challenges are…We will continue to take this matter up even if it means doing it alone,” Stabroek News reported.
Meanwhile, Falkenburg Falkenburg told the gathering that he has been in contact with other regional leaders who indicated their willingness to sign the EPA.
“He warned that anyone not moving along was, in one form or another, putting the EPA at risk and causing issues with the regional integration that was so much at the centre of Cariforum’s work in the past and its workload in the future,” Stabroek News said.
He declared that the EU said it wants to assist the existing regional integration and not, as some are saying, to divide and negotiate. “That has not been the motivation nor the reality,” he said, adding that over the years different regions in the ACP grouping have defined their own reality and one size cannot fit all. Cariforum, he said, was more advanced in its negotiations in some areas, but in others the other regions were more advanced.
Guyana News