The Week in Europe
By David Jessop

On May 20 Sir Shridath Ramphal, the Caribbean's Chief Negotiator and the
Head of the Caribbean's Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) wrote to the
Prime Minister of Jamaica, P J Patterson. His letter, which was subsequently
conveyed to Caribbean Heads of Government on June 7, was in effect a letter
of resignation.

It said that Sir Shridath had, after much soul searching, decided to hand
over the leadership of the RNM to other hands. He did so on the basis that
the Region's external trade negotiations were entering a new phase and would
occupy the Region energetically for at least the next five years.  In his
letter he said that the moment had come to pass on the responsibility, in a
seamless fashion, to others who might take forward this 'most demanding and
essential of tasks'. Sir Shridath suggested that this should occur at the
end of the year and before his full term as Chief Negotiator came to an end.


No one is irreplaceable and Sir Shridath's decision is irrevocable. But the
effect of this on the Caribbean's ability to effectively project a single
strategically led and coherent position in international trade negotiations
should not be underestimated. It is very apparent that the Caribbean has few
statesmen or women of Sir Shridath's calibre. Few have his political reach,
have international respect or such a strong sense of duty, timing or
awareness of the need for the Caribbean to identify a secure space in the
world.

Nor should the importance of the RNM's collective achievements to date in
Brussels, Geneva and Washington be underestimated any more than the
difficulties the region faces in meeting and overcoming, in a coherent way,
the trade policy challenges ahead.

Despite this the work of the RNM has to go on. The pace of International
trade negotiations continues to accelerate. There are strong signs that a
new trade round will be started when the World Trade Organisations
ministerial takes place in Doha in November. Preparations are already
underway to start the final EU/ACP trade negotiation that will lead to an
economic partnership agreement with Europe: most probably with the separate
regions of the ACP. In the Americas detailed negotiations are about to begin
to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas. While elsewhere the detail of
other decisions affecting third nations but having a critical effect on the
economic viability of the Region have to be considered. These include the
EC's 'Everything But Arms' initiative affecting sugar, rice and bananas; a
just announced limited European review of the Generalised Scheme of
Preferences; new EU regimes for sugar, rice and after 2006 bananas; EU
enlargement; a review of Europe's Common Agricultural Policy that may
indirectly affect Caribbean commodities; and services negotiations in Geneva
which impact on for example Caribbean tourism.

For much of the past few months a group of senior Caribbean civil servants
had been looking at the future of the RNM. They have largely been doing so
on narrow financial lines. The RNM had indicated that it needed
significantly more financially if it was to be able to deliver successfully
a positive outcome from impending negotiations on at least three fronts. In
comparison with the vast teams of US or EU negotiators it was under
resourced especially as some of those with the most experience were retiring
or had left to take up highly paid extra regional posts. Moreover, finances
had been tight with Barbados having to guarantee the RNM's income as certain
nations either failed to pay their share on time or questioned the RNM's
validity. The financially driven response of the senior officials tasked
with looking at this was that the RNM's presence in London, Brussels and
Geneva should end but Washington should be retained. Moreover the RNM
should, they believe, be relocated to a single site in the Caribbean.

Their report still has to be considered politically and most probably
eventually by Caribbean Heads. However, their thinking is perhaps the
clearest indication yet that a Region which has for example 15 High
Commissions in London and 11 embassies in Brussels has given little thought
to where its priorities should lie or what the real impact of international
trade negotiations will be on the Caribbean's future.

It also suggests that if most of the RNM's overseas presence contracts in
this way with an external office only in North America then, by default, the
region will move inexorably into the FTAA without the balancing influence
that full participation in the European negotiating processes will provide.

Already some trade officials in Brussels are silently cheering, hoping that
such decisions presage a rapid diminution of the Caribbean's effective
intellectual control of the ACP negotiating process. While others, the
donors that have funded the RNMs technical studies, are expressing in
private concern about the impact of any structural change in the RNM on
future Caribbean coherence in negotiations. They in private are already
wondering about the long-term impact that change in the RNM will have on the
Caribbean economy if negotiations become less balanced or, at worst, fail.
There is also concern that the personal jealousies of Caribbean ministers
about their future part in the negotiating process may lead to approaches
that jeopardise negotiating solidarity.

At issue is not the ability of individual ministers, countries or
institutions to rise to the challenge. They are more than capable
individually or in their own national interest to achieve a positive result.
Rather it is about how best to mobilise the region in a coherent and unified
way to develop, pursue and deliver a strategy that deals with challenges on
a number of fronts, each with different timings, but where the wrong
decision or a loss or gain in one has an impact on the other.

Also at issue is the ability of the RNM to keep the region together in a
manner that ensures that not just anglophone Caricom nations agree to
negotiate together but that ensures the newer, larger and more complex
regional partners - Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Haiti - stay within the
Caribbean tent.

Ultimately this is not about the RNM or Sir Shridath Ramphal or what happens
next.

Sir Shridath's graceful resignation hides an unwillingness in many parts of
the Region to accept how the world has changed. It suggests that unless
Caribbean Heads of Government meeting in Nassau suggest otherwise, Sir
Shridath's decision may predicate an historic turn towards the Americas and
away from Europe. But worse still, it suggests that there is little
understanding of the implications of failure in international trade
negotiations or that the monetary costs of participating is paltry in
relation to what is at stake.

David Jessop is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
and can be contacted at [log in to unmask]
June 15th, 2001

Dr. Amanda Sives
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit
Institute of Commonwealth Studies
28 Russell Square
London, WC1B 5DS

Tel: +44 0207-862-8865
Fax: +44 0207-862-8820
Website: http://www.sas.ac.uk/commonwealthstudies/