January 26, 2008

The EPA is more than just a trade agreement: its scope embraces many subjects that have up to now been solely or mainly within national and regional jurisdiction.  As a legally binding international instrument with elaborate implementation and enforcement provisions, it embodies a higher degree of supranational governance than the corresponding arrangements in the Caribbean Community. It will condition the scope and content of future agreements made between Caricom and other major trading partners and the region’s stance in WTO negotiations. There is a sense in which the EPA sets up a framework for the future evolution of the economic, social and environmental policies of Caricom states, both separately and collectively; and for the terms on which the region engages with the global community…

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Not since William Demas’s anguished personal communication on the occasion of his discovery of the neo-conservative proposal known as the ‘Shiprider Solution: Policing the Caribbean’ in the Spring 1996 issue of the National Interest, which he circulated to those whom (I have since come to learn) represented every thinking West Indian he could reach, has there been such profound intellectual unease about the future direction of the region…

Click here for Clive Thomas’s article

Signed by over 100 Caribbean citizens from all walks of life

We note with interest the recent statement by President Bharrat Jagdeo of Guyana in which he observed that the Caribbean stands to gain little from the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) recently negotiated with Europe. .

Click here for text and signatures.

Note prepared for Caricom Secretariat Forum on the EPA, Georgetown, January 11, 2008

•    Our international (trade/economic/political) negotiations need to be
Informed in advance of a clear vision of what it is we want to get out of these arrangements, for the short and longer term.

•    We should avoid accepting templates (such as draft agreements, working-papers, and non-papers) offered by our negotiating counterparts. The very conceptualization and   structures of these templates mask in-built substantive pre-commitments that we cannot assume are always in our interest…

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The Caribbean Cultural Industries Network, an informal network of entertainment and culture industry professionals, is concerned about information filtering into the public domain regarding the status of entertainment practitioners and enterprises in the recently concluded EPA..

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