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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/