Wednesday October 22 2008

by Aarati Jagdeo

As part of the Cariforum-EU EPA’s promise to aid development in the Caribbean, the European Commission (EC) has mobilised financial support in the amount of 165 million Euros, to go towards the European Development Fund (EDF) regional programme for the Caribbean.

This injection of funds into a Regional Development Fund (RDF) was mentioned at the EPA consultation held on 13 Oct., by Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer.

“To support EPA implementation over the next five years, the European Commission has made available some 165 million Euros to the region.”

Spencer also stated the EC’s commitment to secure a share of the two billion Euros set aside for the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) ‘Aid for Trade’ for Cariforum countries.

“Recognising that the traditional pool of EDF resources available to the region will have to be augmented, the EC and its member states have committed to making available to Cariforum countries an equitable share of the 2 billion Euros set aside for ‘Aid for Trade”.

To that he added, “signing of the EPA will immediately pave the way for engaging the EC in respect of access to those additional resources.”

Principal negotiator of the Cariforum-EU EPA, Karl Falkenberg, has in the past stated that the 165 million Euros will be given to support extensive, development co-operation provisions linked to each area covered by the agreement, including e-commerce, cultural industries, and trade in services.

He has also stated that the EPA alone cannot guarantee sustainable development of the Cariforum region.

At the consultation, Falkenberg said that the RDF would essentially be owned and defined by the region, with each country hopefully contributing to the fund and distributing it as they see fit.

Preferably, he added, the distribution of these funds will first be used to attend to those member states in dire need of financial help.

However, Falkenberg stressed that the EC will have no say in how the money is spent. “The Cariforum region will manage the funds to suit its own sensibilities,” Falkenberg said.

The EPA is a scheme created to form a free trade area between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

The Cariforum-EU EPA is a subset of the same agreement but involves specifically, the European Union and the Caribbean member states that make up Cariforum.

Under the Cariforum-EU EPA, trade between the two parties would occur within constraints set by the WTO, whereby trade would be liberalised and any trade preferences that Cariforum has been given in the past would be eliminated.