Title: LESSONS OF THE EPA
1LESSONS OF THE EPA
- Norman Girvan
- Civil Society Forum
- 12 June2008
- http//normangirvan.info
2Country GSP SENSITIVE EXPORTS 2005 data GSP SENSITIVE EXPORTS 2005 data GSP SENSITIVE EXPORTS 2005 data
EXPORTS TO EU TOTAL EXPORTS EXPORTS GOODS SERVICES
BELIZE 75.1 20.7 8.5
GUYANA 72.3 27.7 21.8
ST. KITTS NEVIS 71.5 0.1 0.0
JAMAICA 47.6 11.0 4.3
SURINAME 44.8
DOMINICA 42 7.4 2.3
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
ST. LUCIA 27.4 11.1 1.0
BARBADOS 21.7 4.2 0.5
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 17.4 2.7 0.3
GRENADA 9.1 2.3 0.4
ST VINCENT/GRENADINES 3.9 1.2 0.2
BAHAMAS 3.4 0.0 0.0
ANTIGUA BARBUDA 1.4 0.0 0.0
3COUNTRY VULNERABLE PRODUCTS
Belize BANANAS, SUGAR, ORANGES
Guyana SUGAR, RICE, RUM
St. Kitts Nevis SUGAR (?)
Jamaica SUGAR (CANNED ACKEE)
Suriname BANANAS, RICE
Dominica BANANAS
Dominican Republic BANANAS, RUM
St. Lucia BANANAS
Barbados SUGAR, RUM
Trinidad and Tobago SUGAR (?), JUICES, JAMS, FOOD PREPARATIONS, METHANOL
Grenada ..
St Vincent/Grenadines BANANAS
Bahamas ..
Antigua Barbuda ANCHOVIES
4- Removes duties and all other restrictions on the
majority of imports from Europe within 15 years.
(13 are permanently excluded). - requires that such imported goods be given the
same treatment as national and regionally
produced goods - requires an overhaul of customs and trade
administration to conform to standards largely
set by Europe - circumscribes the kind of actions that
governments are allowed to take to defend
national producers and regional producers against
unfair competition from bigger and much better
European firms - grants EU firms immediate free access to the
majority of our service sectors - requires that service suppliers from Europe be
granted the same treatment as national and
regional service firms,
5- restricts the ability of regional governments to
regulate service industries in the public
interest - allows European service firms to bring in their
own people as senior managers without specific
qualifications and recent graduates as interns, - guarantees that European firms that establish
themselves here can repatriate their capital and
current earnings freely - requires regional governments to pass new laws
and set up new institutions in Intellectual
Property, Competition Policy, Pubic Procurement,
and e-commerce that are mainly aimed at
facilitating European business and conforming to
the European global trade policy agenda - pre-empts Caricoms own development policies in
these areas and hence in effect supersedes the
CSME process - establishes an implementation machinery, presided
over by a joint Council with the EU and the DR
with binding decision-making powers,
6- establishes a Trade and Development Committee
with powers to supervise, monitor and implement
every aspect of the agreement - establishes a Dispute Settlement Machinery which
tightly circumscribes the ability of governments
and government agencies to get out from under the
obligations of the agreement and allows for
punitive trade sanctions in the event of
non-compliance - requires that OECS countries open their economies
to imports from the DR as well as Europe, hence
removing their special and differential treatment
that they currently enjoy in the Caricom-DR FTA - requires that we extend to Europe whatever we
might agree in the future with other large
developing countries, and - is an international treaty with legally binding
force, of indefinite duration, and with limited
scope for revision
7Â and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised and timing of imports to be liberalised
COUNTRY 0 5Y 10 Y 15 Y 20Y 25Y EXC
ANTIGUA / BARBUDA 7 7 25 35 2 2 22
BAHAMAS 32 2 13 34 3 2 13
BARBADOS 48 0 2 24 1 1 23
BELIZE 13 6 10 27 1 3 39
DOMINICA 17 3 18 27 2 1 27
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 53 8 5 21 3 5 5
GRENADA 9 14 20 25 2 3 28
GUYANA 53 1 7 18 2 1 18
HAITI 60 0 1 7 2 4 27
JAMAICA 56 0 1 26 2 1 13
ST. KITTS AND NEVIS 18 16 16 17 2 2 29
ST. LUCIA 38 0 4 22 5 2 29
ST. VINCENT/GREN 8 7 14 30 2 2 37
SURINAME 9 9 20 27 2 3 28
TRINIDAD/TOBAGO 73 0 1 18 0 1 6
CARIFORUM 53 3 5 22 2 2 13
8A Level Playing Field?
POPULATION (Millions) GDP (PPP) Bil. PER CAPITA GDP (PPP)
EU 490 12165 24,811
CARIFORUM 25 138 5,532
CARICOM 15 65 4,220
9PLAYING ON THE LEVEL FIELD Aggregate GDP PPP
2005
15 RICHEST EU COUNTRIES
CARIFORUM COUNTRIES
10CARIFORUM Adjustment CostsEstimated Milner
Report 2005
- Fiscal adjustment costsEU 375 m
- Trade facilitation and export development costs
240 m EU - Production and employment adjustment costs 140 M
- Skill development and productivity enhancement
costsEU 210 M - TOTAL 924 M
- Amount allocated for EPA implementation in 10th
EDF 33 M
11ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices) ESTIMATED EPA ADJUSTMENT COSTS FOR CARIFORUM COUNTRIES (in million ) (in 2005-equivalent prices)
NO. COUNTRY Fiscal Adjustment Export Diversification Employment Adjustment Skills/ Productivity Enhancement Total Adjustment Costs
1 HAITI 50 20 20 30 120
2 DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 50 20 25 20 115
3 GUYANA 15 30 6 10 61
4 SURINAME 20 10 6 15 51
5 JAMAICA 40 12 12 15 79
6 BARBADOS 20 5 6 10 41
7 BELIZE 20 10 6 10 46
8 DOMINICA 20 5 6 15 46
9 GRENADA 20 30 6 15 71
10 ST KITTS AND NEVIS 20 5 6 15 46
11 ST. LUCIA 20 5 4 10 39
12 ST. VINCENT/GRENADINES 20 30 6 15 71
13 TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 40 12 25 15 92
14 BAHAMAS 20 5 6 15 46
Total Total 375 199 140 210 924
12Objections to a Full EPA
- Includes Chapters ON Investment and Current
Account payments, Competition Policy, Public
Procurement, Intellectual Property - The commitments are immediate, legally binding
and indefinite while the supposed benefits are
in the future and unenforceable. - Restrict the ability of CF governments to foster
the development of local and regional enterprises
and to regulate their economies in the public
interest--indefinitely.
13- Pre-empt and prescribe the CSME policy regimes in
these areas. These ought To have been crafted to
foster the development of local and regional
enterprises better equipped to penetrate
extra-regional markets. - Undermine the negotiating position of the CF and
other developing countries in the WTO - Commit governments to onerous implementation
obligations-- new laws and regulations and to set
up new institutions
14Other Contentious Clauses
- Regional Preference
- Requires the Caricom LDCS to open their markets
to the Dom Rep as well as to the EU - Most Favoured Nation (MFN) Clause
- Requires Cariforum to grant the same treatment to
the EU as they may garnt to China, India, Brazil
and MERCOSUR in any future trade agreement
15Girvan EPA 01/05/08
15
16IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EPA
- 336 identified implementation actions
- 90 legislative
- 72 institutional
- 110 policy
- 64 other
- Most are to be taken on provisional application
of the EPA - Outstanding for CSME implementation 384 (2005)
17LESSONS OF THE EPA
- Absence of strategic political management
- Ad hoc and expedient decision-making
- Failure to maintain the ACP alliance
- Failure to tap into potential sources of
political support in Europe - Failure to present our own development agenda as
the framework for the negotiations - Delays in CSME implementation of the CSME
- Aceptance of negotiations on the EC template,
coming directly out of the Global Europe project,
- Ideological and institutional co-optation of key
elites in the region - Lack of genuine popular involvement in the process
18Advocacy demands
- 1. Renegotiate the EPA to remove its
objectionable features and to insert features
designed to protect the public, national and
regional interest preserve the space for
autonomous development policy and protect the
integrity of the regional integration movement.
19- A RENEGOTIATED EPA
- Limit the EPA to what is necessary to ensure WTO
compatibility - Seek the widest possible interpretation of what
constitutes substantially all trade vis-Ã -vis
degree and phasing of liberalization - Phasing import liberalization in line with
development of production capacities in import
substitution and exports (Brewster) - Insisting on binding obligations for development
support - Removing the Regional Preference and Most
Favoured Nation clauses. - Insertion of legally binding development
benchmarks to be monitored by the Joint
Parliamentary and/or Consultative Committees with
legally binding powers - Insertion of five-year Review clause
20Plan B
- Demand insertion into the agreement of
- Development Benchmarks (social and economic) as
legally binding monitoring instruments - A Review Clause that compels an unconditional
review of all EPA provisions after the first
three years of operation, with possibility of
renegotiation. There is a similar feature in the
CPA.
21Plan C
- Call for Cariforum or Caricom governments to
collectively issue a Joint Declaration stating
that they are signing the EPA in spite of severe
reservations, and that they reserve the right to
undertake a comprehensive review of the EPA
within three years of signature, to determine its
development impact and its impact on regional
integration and to seek, on the basis of such a
review, a comprehensive renegotiation of the EPA
in line with WTO rules and the development and
integration needs of the region.
22Plan D
- Press governments to commission an independent,
socio-economic impact analysis of the initialed
EPA to determine challenges, threats and
opportunities to farmers, businessmen small and
large, workers, women, youth, and recipients of
public and social services and declare that the
EPA lacks legitimacy.