Ambassador Richard Bernal (right), head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), greets Kirk Kennedy, executive director of markets at Jamaica Trade and Invests, while Audrey Marks, president of the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica (AMCHAM), looks on. The occasion was the first in AMCHAM's Speaker's Forum Luncheon Series, held at the Hilton Kingston Hotel yesterday. (Photo: Lionel Rookwood)

Head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Richard Bernal, has lashed out at critics of the recently negotiated Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the European Union (EU) and CARIFORUM (Caricom and the Dominican Republic), urging the detractors to become more in tune with the globalised world.

In his keynote address at the Speaker's Forum Luncheon Series, hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce of Jamaica at the Hilton Kingston Hotel yesterday, Bernal described as "misleading", the suggestion by some persons that the EPA was too hastily agreed upon by the region.

He highlighted that the trade component of The Cotonou Agreement -one of the non-reciprocal preferential trade regimes which have governed Euro-Caribbean trade for over three decades - had to come to an end on December 31st 2007 in accordance with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, and an extension or renewal of the agreement might not have been approved by the international governing body.

"(The Cotonou Agreement) had preferential elements and if it has preferential elements it has to be given a waiver in the WTO - that waiver had to come to an end," said Bernal. "It was not, as many of the misleading critics have said, something that could have been automatically extended or automatically renewed...we would of had to go back to the WTO and make a case.

"This would have taken months and there is no guarantee that it would have been renewed," noted the ambassador.
For years, the EU allowed former colonies in the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) region to have preferential access to its markets and paid them higher than world market prices for their sugar and bananas. But the WTO, after challenges from large- scale banana producers, Ecuador, ruled that the agreement was unfair and ordered a regularisation of the trading arrangement. Hence, a waiver, which expired on December 31st, was given on the agreement in order to facilitate negotiations for a new arrangement.

"The preferential arrangement which we enjoyed for sugar and banana have been struck down by rulings in the WTO and we wanted to salvage as much of the preferential arrangements as we could," noted Bernal. "Therefore, we wanted to move quickly to replace the existing trade arrangements with a new arrangement which would lock in the remnants of that prefential arrangement."

The ambassador defended the reciprocity aspect of the EPA - enforced by the WTO, and the erosion of the preferential principles. In the new arrangement, CARIFORUM has duty-free and quota-free access to European markets for all exports in goods and services, with the exception of rice and sugar. However, at the same time, the EPA grants the EU more market access in the region as well.

One high-ranking official opposed to the EPA is President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana, who believes that the Caribbean stands to gain little from the agreement. He had suggested recently that the shift from a preferential trade to a reciprocal agreement introduces a new set of challenges that the Caribbean is not prepared to face.

"(The EPA) was a priority for us because it was the best option at the time; we also did it in a context where there were a number of developments that we were not neccessarily happy about but you have to face reality," noted Bernal. "It is a trade agreement, not an aid agreement....some of the critics are living in the past and are wishing for a past that cannot come back".

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