CARIFORUM EPA With EU Is Finally To Be Signed

by Ulrika Lomas, Tax-News.com, Brussels

14 October 2008

Wednesday will see the signing in Barbados of the Economic Partnership Agreement between CARIFORUM and the European Union, which has been in the making since 2004 under the terms of the Cotonau Agreement.

The EPA was initialled last December; since then the member countries of CARIFORUM have been in a huddle with themselves, some of them agonizing until the last minute as to whether they really, really wanted the agreement. It was originally supposed to have been signed in July.

CARIFORUM consists of Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Said Donville Inniss, Minister of State in the Barbados Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and International Business: “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 stressed. The Minister added that, while not perfect, the EPA is the best that could have been achieved, and should not be delayed any further.

In fact, the EPA was something of an achievement for Peter Mandelson, EU Trade Commissioner, who finally secured agreement to EPAs with the ACP countries from all 27 EU member states only after a rancorous and long-drawn-out negotiation.

The EPA will give CARIFORUM states free access to the member states of the EU for their goods exports, in return for opening their own markets to the EU after transition periods of up to 25 years. The EPA covers trade in goods, services and investments, and provides for development assistance to CARIFORUM countries.

The coverage of goods liberalised by CARIFORUM countries under this Agreement amounts to 61.1% of CARIFORUM imports from the EU in value over 10 years, 82.7% over 15 years (84.7% of tariff lines) and 86.9% over 25 years (90.2% of tariff lines).

Much is made of wording in the EPA committing the parties to achieving sustainable development through capacity building measures and increased investment. The EPA reaffirms a commitment to the use of international environment standards, taking account of scientific information, respect for the precautionary principle, and transparency, and to core labour standards as incorporated in the 1998 International Labour Organisation declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights of Work and the United Nations declaration on Full Employment and Decent Work.

For all products originating in CARIFORUM countries and exported to the EU (other than rice and sugar), the Agreement has brought about a Duty and Quota Free Access (DFQF) regime as from 1 January 2008. This is a major improvement compared to the preferential treatment granted under the Cotonou Agreement for some agricultural products, in particular for bananas. Access for CARIFORUM rice will be DFQF after a transition period of 2 years ending on 31 December 2009. In 2008 and 2009 the rice quota will be 187,000 tonnes and 250,000 tonnes, compared to the former quota of 125,000 tonnes. The in-quota duty will be eliminated.

For sugar, access will be DFQF as from 1 October 2009, subject to a transitional automatic safeguard mechanism until 30 September 2015. For the period from 1 October 2008 to 30 September 2009, while the Sugar Protocol remains in force, a quantity of 60,000 tonnes of sugar at zero duty (additional to the quantities under the Sugar Protocol) has been granted to CARIFORUM countries. 30,000 tonnes of this tariff rate quota have been reserved for the Dominican Republic which has so far had no preferential access under the Sugar Protocol.

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