BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – There is to be a further delay in the proposed signing in Barbados of the Caribbean region’s Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), originally expected before June 30.

Conflicting dates offered by the European Commission and the Barbados Government keep pushing back the signing ceremony to either mid or late July.

The EC recently proposed a July 14 or 15 signing but Barbados has counter-proposed either July 21 or July 23.

A compromise date for the historic signing ceremony is now likely to be discussed during this week’s Fifth EU/Latin America and Caribbean Summit, scheduled to be held over two days, beginning on Friday in the Peruvian capital, Lima, a highly placed source told the Observer.

The sources said the translation of the EPA text into the national language of the 25 EU member states contributed to the shifting of the date for the signing ceremony.

While the EPA, initialled in Barbados on December 16 last year, remains a source of controversy among some governments and the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) – which led the CARIFORUM (the Caribbean Community and the Dominican Republic) negotiations with EC officials – preliminary arrangements have begun for some 40 heads of government or their delegated representatives to participate in the series of bilateral signing arrangements, possibly not later than the end of July, at the Barbados Hilton.

Caricom’s Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) had discussed at its 26th Special Meeting this past weekend a proposed ‘road map’ of EPA implementation arrangements that need to be in place before application of the accord gets under way.

Even at this late stage, however, there continue to be calls from well-known regional economists like Dr Havelock Brewster and Dr Norman Girvan for governments to make use of the recurring shifting dates for the signing ceremony to engage in a more critical assessment of the EPA.

Some Caricom states are reported to be still poring over the voluminous text, aware that once signed it becomes a binding accord between them and the EU.

Any adjustment to the text, as initialled last December between officials of the CRNM and EC, will require prior approval of all EU countries, ahead of a notification to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) of this first comprehensive EPA to have been negotiated within the framework of EU/ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries for an envisaged six such regional accords.