The Week in Europe
By David Jessop


For much of the last week, the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of
nations meeting in Brussels have been considering their future relationship
with Europe. Their predominant focus has been on the ACP's new treaty with
Europe, agreed earlier this year and how its should be implemented. But more
significantly the agenda caused Ministers to begin to consider the process
that may eventually lead to dramatic changes in the ACP's future trade
relationship with Europe. 

The weekend before, European Union (EU) Heads of Government meeting in Nice
in France had also been considering the future. They had been trying to
agree to the shape of a new Europe. They had been locked in a difficult
debate on how to manage enlargement and the impact this would have on the
future of European decision making and the EU's institutions.

The subject matter of both meetings is inextricably linked. The way Europe's
sees its future and its role in the world is what is now causing the ACP to
adjust its expectations and in many cases its economies, to respond to
Europe's changing priorities. As the European Commission's 'everything but
arms' proposal has already shown, this will not be a comfortable experience.
For the more developed regions of the ACP and the Caribbean in particular,
the Nice summit and the 'everything but arms' initiative suggests the
special relationship is close to an end. So much so, that in the case of the
Caribbean, a moment will come, in months rather than years, when leaders
will have to contemplate the region's history and determine the weight to be
placed on future EU relations.

To understand why such critical decisions are now looming, it is necessary
to provide a little background. In February of this year the ACP agreed with
Europe a successor arrangement to the Lomé Convention. This, the Cotonou
Convention, provides an integrated political, aid and trade relationship
with Europe that extends over the next twenty years. However, it is
fundamentally a transitional arrangement that aims to bring all ACP nations
individually or as groups into the global economic community and into
conformity with the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). It has the
effect, when taken with changing EU policy, of creating a relationship that
is no longer special, preferential, or based on history or post-colonial
perceptions. In other words it consigns, over time, Europe's former colonies
to parity with the rest of the world.

At the heart of this process is an arrangement whereby in September 2002 the
ACP will begin negotiations for a post 2008 trade relationship with Europe.
The EU believes that this future relationship with all of the ACP Caribbean,
except Haiti, should be based on a regional reciprocal free trade
arrangement. In Haiti's case, as with all other less developed ACP nations,
the EU is offering duty and quota free access into Europe on a
non-reciprocal basis for as long it continues to be poor. In other words
Europe is seeking to graduate as rapidly as possible the somewhat better off
developing world (e.g. the Caribbean) from their present special
preferential trade status irrespective of issues such smallness or
vulnerability.

In Brussels these were the issues the Caribbean, together with other more
developed ACP economies such as Mauritius, Nigeria and Kenya, were having to
address. Specifically they had to ensure that the less developed part of the
ACP grouping, who are in a majority, do not loose sight of the bigger
picture or the implications of the group fragmenting.
This involved Ministers like Barbados' Deputy Prime Minster, Billie Miller,
Jamaica's Foreign Trade Minister, Anthony Hylton, and Haitian
representatives, arguing that the ACP must not precipitously accept Europe's
prescription or timetable without observing the processes agreed in the new
Convention. Rather, it will be necessary for the ACP to determine a properly
prepared approach that enables negotiations with Europe to benefit from ACP
solidarity and a proper analysis of the type of arrangements that will best
suit the ACP group as a whole, its regions or individual nations. 

Broadly speaking, this line succeeded. But it is fragile and held together
in some cases by a grudging acceptance of the need to respect the procedures
painstakingly negotiated over two years with the EU and now enshrined in the
Cotonou Convention. Whether it can survive far into the New Year remains an
open question. If some ACP nations choose self-interest over solidarity,
next year may come to be one that haunts the Caribbean.

Irrespective of this, the Caribbean as a region will find itself very soon
having to determine what it wishes to negotiate for, how and when. 

This is not just a technical matter. It is by its nature a philosophical
issue as well. It suggests that the region's leaders may have to determine
in the first six months of 2001 the nature of the long-term geo-strategic
relationship they require with Europe and with others. Put more simply, the
debate in the ACP begs the question as to where the region sees itself in 20
years time in the Americas. Should it be the present EU and ACP related
Cariforum grouping or as a part of the much larger body, the Association of
Caribbean States? In either context it will have to consider its non-aligned
status and the balance it will seek in its relationship with the US and the
world's eventual new superpower, the EU. Alternatively some in the region
may see the Caribbean's future inextricably entwined with the US as an
enlarged and less interested Europe becomes more remote and less relevant.
These decisions will be made more difficult by a new US President in the
White House who may seek to engage more closely with the Americas and by
divergent ACP views, most especially in parts of Africa and the Pacific  

The outcome of the Nice summit provides another reason why Caribbean nations
may need to think long and hard about the value of their future relationship
with Europe. If there is to be a Europe of twenty-two nations in which all
but three have any historic relationship with the Caribbean, what chance is
there of having the voice of the region heard. The more so if all decisions
on trade and services are to be the subject of a qualified majority vote and
the number of Commissioners is to be expanded.  Put bluntly, which Caribbean
nation let alone industry has the will or resource to argue its interests
across all 22 capitals and then be faced with defeat by a voting system that
results in the EU's smaller nations exercising a blocking minority vote? 

These and other options raise far from easy questions to answer for
individual Caribbean nations let alone a multilingual Cariforum grouping
that is still trying to build mutual trust. The more so in a region where
perceptions of Europe are coloured by history, culture, politics and
individual nations economic constraints. 

The holiday season approaches. In the Christian tradition it is a period of
celebration shared with reflection. It may be an apt moment to consider the
difficulties that lie ahead. 

David Jessop is the Excessive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
and can be contacted at [log in to unmask]
December 15th, 2000

Note to Editors: The next David Jessop column will be sent on January 12th.
A very happy Christmas.