(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) A series of national consultations in the Region, launched in July of this year, on implementation issues as relates to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between CARIFORUM and the European Union (EU) have been progressing steadily, and are due to continue into September.

The EPA Implementation Unit based in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat is at the helm of these consultations, which form part of its on-going efforts to provide technical support and guidance to CARIFORUM States on aspects of EPA implementation. The consultations center on trade in goods and trade in services/investment, respectively.

The Head of the Unit, Mr Branford Isaacs, who is also its Trade in Goods Specialist, will lead off on the upcoming cluster of consultations on trade in goods, set first for Antigua and Barbuda, at the end of the week, then the Commonwealth of Dominica (6th to 7th September) and St Vincent & the Grenadines (8th to 10th September). These discussions will principally involve Customs and Trade officials.

In the lead up to this batch of meetings on trade in goods was the most recent leg of services/investment-related national consultations, spearheaded by the Unit’s Services and Investment Specialist, Ms Allyson Francis. These consultations took place in August in St Vincent & the Grenadines (3rd to 5th), Trinidad & Tobago (17th to 19th) and Belize (25th to 27th), and involved representatives of Trade, Immigration, Labour, Tourism, Culture, Education and Health authorities. In some jurisdictions, service sector advocacy organizations participated.

The next cluster of services/investment-related consultations is set to commence in the first half of September in St Kitts & Nevis and Antigua & Barbuda, and is slated to continue in the latter half of the month in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica.

This past July, the Unit organized four national consultations on trade in goods: Guyana (7th), Trinidad and Tobago (15th to 16th), Barbados (19th to 20th) and Suriname (26th to 28th). With regards to trade in services/investment, in that month meetings were held in Saint Lucia (26th to 27th) and Barbados (29th to 30th).

In the consultations on trade in goods, particular attention is being paid to certain administrative procedures in the rules of origin under the EPA, the arrangements for continuing to apply taxes on imports from the EU into CARIFORUM States and preparations by CARIFORUM States for the beginning of the phased reduction of duties in favour of imports from the EU.

Consultations in trade in services/investment have sought principally to address: the mechanisms in place in States for the implementation of the EPA, particularly as relates to services and investment provisions; priority services sectors and EU States for market access information, in addition to available export opportunities and the technical/capacity building assistance that States may require; the sector-specific development cooperation needs of States; and, policies in place for scheduled sectors, as well as the regulatory framework that obtains.

These exchanges have afforded the Unit a greater awareness of the progress by States on EPA implementation, and they are vital to the Unit’s efforts to support CARIFORUM States.

Mr Isaacs said of the national consultations to date, ‘they are essential for the Unit to strengthen its ability to assess the status of implementation of the EPA by respective CARIFORUM States’. He noted that such consultations ‘provide an opportunity to deepen dialogue with key stakeholders’. Mr Isaacs further noted that ‘the Unit makes use of in-country visits to reinforce the message that those CARIFORUM States that have as yet to designate National Coordinators, in accordance with Article 234 of the Agreement, must do so as a matter of urgency’. He added, ‘such States need to accelerate the establishment of the necessary architecture for EPA implementation’.

These consultations come against the backdrop of the convening of the Inaugural Meeting of the Joint CARIFORUM-EU Council (the Joint Council), in May of this year. At that time, the Rules of Procedure for this body were adopted, as were the Rules of Procedure for the CARIFORUM-EU Trade and Development Committee and for the Special Committees. The Joint Council meeting was held in Madrid, in the margins of the VI EU-Latin America and Caribbean (LAC) Summit.

The adoption of Rules of Procedure opens the way for the institutions of the EPA to begin their work, which is critical to the proper and effective operation of the Agreement. The first meeting of the Trade and Development Committee, which it is hoped will be convened in the coming months, is keenly anticipated, as this is the institution that is charged with responsibility for implementation and proper application of the EPA.

The fifteen signatory Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (CARIFORUM) States to the EPA are the independent CARICOM Member States (including Haiti and the Bahamas) and the Dominican Republic.

CONTACT: Nand C. Bardouille
                 Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) Implementation Unit
                 nbardouille@caricom.org