Brussels, 28/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - Negotiations for the economic partnership agreement (EPA) between the EU and sixteen Caribbean members of Cariforum have entered a crucial phase. Cariforum is one of the six regional integration areas at the ACP (Africa/Caribbean/Pacific) linked to the Union through the Cotonou agreement concluded in 2000 for 20 years. Caricom is the regional organisation designated by the sixteen countries concerned, as negotiator with the Europeans.
Meeting in Saint Lucia, the two parties are expected to begin the third and final part of negotiations on 30 September to draft a text for the final agreement the EU and Caricom are expected to put in place for a trade regime that is compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the development objective of the Cotonou agreement.
Peter Mandelson, European Commissioner for trade and negotiator-in-chief for the EU has already left to take part in the launch of this ultimate phase of negotiations, which are expected to be concluded at the end of 2007. On Thursday, the Commissioner will seize the opportunity provided by this visit to hold preparatory bilateral meetings for the ministerial conference of the WTO in Hong Kong next December, together with Billie Miller, Barbados foreign affairs minister and spokesperson in these negotiations, Dr Kenny Anthony, prime minister of St Lucia and Clement Rohee, Guyana minister of trade and Caricom spokesperson.
Since September 2002 the EPA has been negotiated under the Cotonou agreement and is expected to enter into force in 2008 to gradually prepare the setting up of long term bilateral free trade agreements, which in 12-15 years time (according to the transition period negotiated at the WTO) will be substituted with a unilateral trade preferences system which will benefit ACP countries that have a derogation to WTO rules until the end of 2007.
The first phase of negotiations was conducted with the whole of the ACP group with the aim of defining the objectives and principles of the EPA, construed as development instruments based on regional integration, trade incentives and economic development of the partner regions of the EU.
The second phase - that of bilateral negotiations - was launched in 2004 with six ACP regional integration regions (EUROPE 8688). It focuses on deepening regional integration with the goal of ensuring development of the regional markets and creating a favourable investment environment. The sixteen Cariforum countries have affirmed their intention to set up a single market by the end of 2005.
The third phase of negotiations just about to begin, should continue with this work and establish a timetable for liberalising trade. However, the market liberalisation process, reciprocal but asymmetric, will not begin until 2008. Sources close to the European Commission repeated on Tuesday that, “These are is not traditional negotiations for a free trade agreement. There is no question at this stage of asking ACP countries to dismantle their trade tariffs or open up their markets to goods and services from the EU. Ministers will provide orientations for structuring the draft agreement to submit to next ministerial session in 2006”. The follow-up mechanism for future EPAs has just been implemented by Peter Mandelson and development Commissioner Louis Michel to ensure that the EPA really helps in practice to achieving the development objectives that they are pursuing.
These sources are therefore responding to opponents of the EPA and members of the “Stop the EPA” campaign, who criticise it for the unfair character of the free trade agreements and their potentially devastating consequences to jobs, industry, inland revenue and public services in some of the least advanced countries. Launched in October 2004 by a collective of NGOs from the North and South, this campaign was reactivated on Monday, before the departure of Peter Mandelson, by the NGOs Tradecraft (United Kingdom) and EcoNews (Kenya).
In concrete terms, the text of the final agreement to be negotiated will contain: - provisions relating to regional integration with a reminder of its mechanisms (common external tariff, rules governing the investment scheme, cooperation measures for enhancing this work at inter-institutional level); - a chapter on goods (conditions of market access and related rules: rules of origin, license management system, customs mechanism); - a chapter on the trade in services; - a chapter on investment; - a chapter on competition; - a chapter on public procurement; - and the timetable for trade liberalisation.