The Week in Europe
By David Jessop

In September 2002 negotiators from the African Caribbean and Pacific Group
of nations (the ACP) will meet in Brussels with their European counterparts
to begin to construct a new trade relationship. 

The outcome of these negotiations will, after 2008, alter fundamentally the
Caribbean's trade relationship with Europe. They will probably create over
time something close to a two-way free trade arrangement with Europe. They
are also expected to bring to an end the beneficial but discriminatory
aspects of the remaining preferential arrangements for ACP sugar and other
commodities.

Even before either side has established a firm negotiating position both
Europe and the ACP are having difficulty agreeing what the negotiations are
to be about. 

Despite a careful choice of words, it is clear that the European
Commission's (EC) trade negotiators want any future arrangement to result in
separate economic partnership arrangements with the Caribbean region, with
the regions of Africa and with the Pacific. In this way Europe believes it
can make use of regional integration to facilitate an eventual movement
towards free trade with the European Union (EU).  

For its part, the ACP has made clear it has not as yet decided on its
preferred geographic configuration for the negotiations. That is to say
whether it will consider issues on an ACP-wide, regional or sub-regional
basis. Neither has it determined whether its ultimate objective after 2008
is as the EC suggests, reciprocal free trade arrangements, or whether the
final solution might be some form of asymmetrical trade agreement or even a
new type of preference. 

While such delay is to some extent tactical there are worrying signs that
the ACP is so far behind in its preparatory process that it is unlikely to
have any position by the time Ministers and Heads of Government meet in June
Fiji. This is in stark contrast to the EC that has just begun to consider
the first draft of its negotiating position. As a result it seems that as
with the post Lomé negotiations that took place from 1998 to 2000, the
European Union will by default produce the document that predetermines much
an outcome by setting the intellectual agenda.

For a number of reasons these next negotiations will be unlike any that the
Caribbean or the ACP has experienced before with Europe.

In the past, the lead negotiating role had fallen to the EC's Development
Directorate, as all prior discussions with the ACP have been within the
framework of a development mechanism, the Lomé Convention or its successor
the Cotonou Convention. However, this time responsibility will lie with
Europe's Trade Directorate.  What this suggests is that development
considerations are less likely to be at the forefront of the minds of those
who negotiate. Rather the ACP's interlocutors and those of the Caribbean,
assuming region-specific arrangements go forward, will be individuals whose
expertise is geared to creating positive trade deals for Europe. 

In previous negotiations the Caribbean was able to promote ACP wide
solidarity around a common negotiating position. But to a significant extent
this was damaged by Europe's 'Everything but Arms' initiative of last year.
This granted the world's least developed countries including those in the
ACP immediate duty and quota free access for almost all products on a
non-reciprocal basis, thereby removing the least developed ACP from having a
real role in the next negotiations. As a result the more developed ACP are
less likely to be able to present a convincing all-ACP front. ACP solidarity
has been further dented by some regions of the ACP, most notably in Africa,
accepting, albeit in a relatively low key manner before negotiations begin,
the inevitability of region-specific arrangements.

Apart from the conduct of the next negotiations being far from easy they may
well have a geo-political effect that goes far beyond trade relations. For
example a region specific arrangement with the Caribbean suggests that
Europe's long term relationship with the region will in future be with the
Caribbean as a grouping in the Americas rather than with the ACP.

As matters now stand the EC's Trade Directorate is understood to have
circulated within the European Commission copies of its first draft text
setting out a proposed approach to the next negotiations. 

Although it is unclear exactly what the text proposes, there are
suggestions, which echo earlier remarks of senior European officials, to the
effect that Europe may offer more developed ACP countries duty free and
quota free access for all products as of agreed dates. In the case of
commodities, the same arrangements would apply as under the 'Everything but
Arms' initiative, but any present guarantees such as that ACP sugar
producers presently have on price, may go. In the short term, safeguard
clauses would be proposed for commodities such as rice but eventually even
these might go as full trade reciprocity with Europe occurred. 

If this is indeed the scenario envisaged, it is thought that this offer
would be made to all ACP nations at the outset of negotiations. The EC would
then wish to proceed to negotiate on a region-specific basis special terms
that took account of individual nations' transitional problems along with a
timetable, exceptions and other requirements relating to an eventual
movement to full trade reciprocity with the region and countries concerned. 

This is of course still speculative but it is clear that on the European
side the process is accelerating. It is expected that the European
negotiating mandate whatever its final shape will be agreed shortly after
Easter. Most EU member states have now set aside any thought of delay and
are determined to begin the negotiating process in September in Brussels.

On February 14 to 16 the EC will hold in the Caribbean its last ACP regional
workshop on the forthcoming negotiations. This will take place in Guyana.
Unlike earlier events in Africa and the Pacific it takes place just as the
Europe's thinking is beginning to crystallise. Uniquely it will enable
Caribbean sectoral and other representatives raise questions about the
content of a European negotiating mandate not yet public but already in
circulation within the European Commission.

David Jessop is the Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe
and can be reached at [log in to unmask]
February 1sdt, 2002 






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