The Courier

© IRIN / Manoocher Deghati

Gilles Hounkpatin is Director for Trade, Tourism and Customs at the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and a chief negotiator for the region.

A good agreement

A good agreement places the emphasis on regional integration and making the sub-region more competitive so we can gain better access to the European market.

Joining the global economy

The EPA will enable us to join the global economy. To this end, we must first join the regional economy. We must have access to the European market, and then there is the matter of health and plant health standards, etc.

Supporting resources?

The emphasis must be placed on companies/industries and improving our infrastructures so that we can engage in development.

Lower import duty

Initially, incomes will fall. The budget of our Member States depends on tax revenue. We must resolve this or there will be a social crisis. We believe that we must make an effort at the economic level and in terms of restructuring. We must envisage a fiscal transition towards a system based on internal and indirect taxes, but that will require supporting measures.

Meeting the 31 December 2007 deadline

I place the emphasis on a good agreement.

*Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.

 

Junior Lodge is the Brussels representative of the 16-member state Caribbean bloc of nations, Cariforum*.

Development aspirations

We want an EPA that corresponds with our development aspirations addressing the Cotonou policy objectives of poverty eradication, sustainable development and a new trade regime. We need a development cooperation package to increase competitiveness, innovation and for fiscal and business adjustment.

Services

The Caribbean is very strong on services and we need greater access. One is a quota for skilled and unskilled workers to come to Europe. This will improve delivery of services to European consumers and allow Caribbean workers to return home with improved skills sets.

Import tax losses

For Eastern Caribbean countries, border taxes account for 60% of government revenue. The Caribbean has some of the most highly indebted countries in the world. In the context of high indebtedness and loss of fiscal revenue, countries are cautious. It is precisely because of this concern about taxes, but also about domestic and unfair trade practices by the EU that we have negotiated a transitional period of 25 years for the most sensitive Caribbean products. We are also making sure that we link market openings to the Europeans with their support on reform of our respective tax regimes.

WTO compatibility  To secure market access we have to make sure that it is World Trade Organisation (WTO)-compatible and that we are not subject to further litigation in the WTO. We’ve already seen this on bananas and sugar.

We cannot afford to be removed from the global value chain. This is what happens when you have a threat of litigation. When we have contracts with supermarkets, they want to know that these are being honoured. As a fall back, we must use some of the flexibilities that are currently entrenched in WTO rules and in the jurisprudence to test those flexibilities.

Assistance package

It is a package deal. On the one hand you want market access – because we are trade dependent and the EU is a major export destination – and on the other hand, we need technical assistance, joint ventures and access to relevant technology.

Unfair practices

We must be able to address unfair trade practices and have a special safeguard mechanism where a surge in imports can be addressed to domestic product producers.

Deadline

We need to avoid seeking a waiver and subjecting Caribbean exports to a Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) where additional import taxes would be applied. The risk for us is too severe to tolerate the thought of not completing the negotiations in time.

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

 

Mohlabi K. Tsekoa is Lesotho’s Foreign Affairs Minister and current President of the ACP Council.

EPA readiness

We cannot say we are entirely ready. This is a process. We cannot postpone these agreements just because some regions are not ready while others are. The most important thing is that we get into the Agreement, pull up our socks and ensure that our regions and the ACP can continue to benefit.

What’s a good EPA?

A good EPA should be one that is responsive to the challenges and needs of ACPs: poverty abolition and peace and security on the ground so that development can take place in a conducive environment.
Billy Miller is Foreign Affairs Minister of Barbados.

Respecting the deadline

All ACP regions are committed to striving as hard as they can together, along with the Europeans, to meet the artificial deadline we have set ourselves.
If we don’t make it, I don’t think the sky will fall. I think that people will encourage us rather than cut us off at the knees to reach an EPA.

Caribbean interest in an EPA?

Continuum. We have had four Lomé Conventions. We now have the Cotonou Agreement which goes up to 2020 and the EPAs will now take us beyond 2020. It’s an important step we must take to engage with the European economy. Our survival depends upon it.

Will the EPAs dilute ACP solidarity?

The ACP has always been a regional organisation and we have respected our diversity and understood our strength, and that will continue.