ACP PRESS STATEMENT (November 15, 2008)

http://www.acp.int/en/coa/bananaconcern.suriname08.html


The banana companies in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) States maybe forced out of business following the European Union’s decision to negotiate a Free Trade agreement (FTA) with Central American countries in what the ACP Group describes as on “too generous” terms.
The ACP Group expressed shock that only a week after the EU signed the first Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with an ACP region (CARIFORUM), which supposes to secure, and expand preferential access for ACP bananas into the EU market, the EU has gone ahead to negotiate an FTA with the Central Americans in terms which pose serious threat to ACP preferences.


The EU’s market access offer for bananas in the Framework of the FTA under negotiation might include an initial reference import tariff for bananas, which will be lower than the current applied tariff. Also, there will be a rapid decrease over a relatively short period to a final import tariff landing zone, which is lower than the figure that was indicated by ACP countries as the minimum tariff for the necessary preference that would enable them to continue their export of bananas to the EU.


The ACP understands that the EU plans to lower the current levy on competing bananas from certain Central America States of 176 euros per tonne to 95 euros over ten years.


The Chairman of the ACP Banana Working Group, Ambassador Gerhard Hiwat of Suriname, said that the new offer to Central America would mean the end of the banana industry in all the banana producing countries of the ACP Group.


The chairman believes that EU’s action also contradicts the objectives of the EPAs it signed with the Caribbean and interim agreement initialed with some African Banana exporting countries, and seriously questions the ACP-EU partnership.


The Ambassador of the Dominican Republic, His Excellency Dr Fredrico Alberto Cuello Camilo, re-iterated that the EU is negotiating with Central America on “too generous” terms.


He said that if the negotiation between the two parties is successful it would put ACP exporters out of business, adding that it would also result in the dislocation of economies and loss of jobs in the ACP countries concerned and might even impact on neighboring countries.


The Ambassador stated that in his country alone 15,000 families depend on bananas for employment, and they have also employed a lot of Haitians.Dr Cuello Camilo said that most of the economies that rely on bananas would collapse if the EU pushes ahead with the planned agreement with Central America.


The Ambassador of Jamaica, Her Excellency Mrs. Marcia Gilbert-Roberts, said the reduction of tariff from 176 Euros to 95 Euros would make it impossible for her farmers to compete on the European market.



Delegates from African banana exporting nations like Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon did also express the same concerns. The Charge d’Affairs of the Eastern Caribbean States, Dr Arnold Thomas, said that banana has been a source of livelihood of the states he represents and now it has been threatened.


The ACP appeals to the EU to honour the partnership and cautions that it’s the EU’s actions towards the Central Americans, would not send a right signal to the regions that have yet to sign off to an EPA.

The President did it! CRNM Couldn't?

New Amendments to the CARIFORUM EPA forged by Guyana acting ALONE

"Regrettably, the CARICOM partners failed to respond positively to his requests to do so, even though these changes would be in the interests of all."

An e-mail received from Prof. Norman Girvan should be a source of comfort as the CARICOM leaders sit today to sign the CARIFORUM EPA. The Prof. simply said:

"This statement has my full support.
Norman "
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A Declaratory Amendment to the EPA Paves the Way For Guyana to Sign

By Havelock R. Brewster

"Despite the intransigence of the European Commission, and the failure of CARICOM partners to cooperate with Guyana in addressing the glaring shortcomings of the CARIFORUM- European Union Economic Partnership Agreement, the Government of Guyana has succeeded in getting two important improvements made to the Agreement, through a Declaration to be appended to it. "

This will provide for:

• A mandatory evaluation of the costs and other deleterious effects of the Agreement in five yearly periods so as to determine where the terms of the Agreement and/or of their application need to be amended; and
• Some degree of protection for CARICOM as it proceeds to develop the Single Market and Economy, given that the EPA prematurely incorporates policies and measures that have not yet been developed and/or adopted within CARICOM itself.

These protections and the mechanism for revision of the EPA will now permit the Guyana Government to be a party to the EPA to be signed on October 15.

The President had said from the start that Guyana would not be a signatory to the Agreement unless forced to do so under duress, given the substantial losses that Guyana would incur due to the punitive tariffs that would be applied to its exports, particularly of sugar, rice and rum.

He proceeded therefore to seek the cooperation of the other CARICOM States in getting the EC to amend the most harmful provisions, or lack of provisions, in the Agreement. Regrettably, the CARICOM partners failed to respond positively to his requests to do so, even though these changes would be in the interests of all. Guyana had long warned of these harmful provisions.
They include, among others:

• the weak or non-existent development dimension that was supposed and promised as the center-piece of the so-called Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union- a French-sponsored review actually referred to the Agreement as “änti-development”;
• the curtailment of Caribbean development policy-space in several important respects;
• reneging on commitments undertaken in respect of the WTO negotiations;
• a number of unsatisfactory features in respect of the provisions on Services and WTO-Plus issues like investment, intellectual property rights, government procurement, e-commerce, and on Trade in Goods as well;
• pre-emption of CARICOM's development of regional integration instuments in those very areas , including certain of them presently, actively, under negotiation in CARICOM;
• the astonishing give-away of the MFN;
• the inexplicable absence of any mechanism for evaluation of the cost and other effects of the Agreement, and commitment, if need be, to revision of the terms, or application, of the relevant provisions;

Without support from the Caribbean Community as a whole, it has not been possible to get all these issues substantively addressed now. Moreover, an initiative through the Grouping of African Caribbean and Pacific countries for a Presidential engagement with the European Union, to be organized by October 31, on such issues - that also affect the African and Pacific States - has been ignored by CARIFORUM.

The Declaration therefore, while it does not address upfront all the issues, ensures that there is adequate protection to ensure that harmful effects are detected, arrested and corrected periodically. It is unquestionably an important concession secured from the EC, for CARICOM as a whole, and one that Guyana can live with.