No stopping EPA signing

Published: Friday October 10, 2008

The region's signing of the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe will go ahead next week as planned, despite a move by the wider African, Caribbean, Pacific (ACP) group to get European Union (EU) leaders to review the deal.

Barbados' Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Business, Donville Inniss, said the decision made by heads of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) - which negotiated the pact along with the Dominican Republic as the CARIFORUM grouping - still stands.

"I want the message to go forth quite clearly that the EU-CARIFORUM EPA signing ceremony will take place in Barbados next Wednesday, October 15...The invitations have already gone out to our CARIFORUM partners and to our EU partners and we expect that all countries involved will be adequately represented at the signing ceremony next Wednesday. We don't want any ambiguity about it," he said yesterday.

While acknowledging that the EPA was not perfect, Minister Inniss underlined that "it was the best that we could have at this point in time, and we need not delay it any further".

He said Barbados had stressed this at the recently concluded sixth ACP Heads of Government Summit in Ghana.

"Barbados took the opportunity to remind the ACP gathering that these discussions had been ongoing for nearly four and a half years. All states had the opportunity to give their input and there was far and wide consultation within individual states in CARIFORUM and between CARIFORUM states and we have no reason not to proceed with an agreement that includes trade, goods and services," Inniss said.

However, in a communiqué issued after that meeting, Ghana's president John Agyekum Kufour said ACP heads had instructed the President of Council and the secretary-general of the 79-member group to explore, by month end, "modalities for conducting this high-level engagement with key stakeholders of the European Union".

The EPA covers trade in goods, services and investments. Guyana is the only Caribbean country that has declared it will not sign the deal, pushing instead for a "goods only" agreement. That suggestion was dismissed when Caricom leaders met in a special summit last month in Barbados where all the others agreed to sign the accord.


Source: Jamaica Observer
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/magazines/Business/html/20081009T210000-0500_141141_OBS_NO_STOPPING_EPA_SIGNING.asp