The Week in Europe

By David Jessop

 

Wars are always full of uncertainties. The collateral damage they cause threatens the peace as much as the prosecution of the war itself. 

 

Although the fighting in Iraq is far from over, governments in Europe, have begun to consider how best to reshape a post-conflict European Union (EU). They reason that Europe is now divided between those who seem to place a higher value on a transatlantic relationship and those that see Europe as an alternative pole to the US. 

 

For the Eurocentrics, the United Kingdom and by extension Spain, Italy and the nations of Eastern Europe that will become full EU members next year, are so strongly pro-American as to make them less than reliable Europeans. This they believe will impact negatively when the ten countries due to join the Union in 2004 come to take decisions on Europe’s institutions or a common, foreign and security policy. The result is that Belgium, France, Germany and others are beginning to incline towards what is described as a two-speed or two-tier Europe. That is to say a core group of countries that will agree joint positions on issues including defence that other member states may sign up to as and when they wish. 

 

In the Caribbean too, the war is highlighting the differences, largely unspoken, that exist between the Anglophone Caribbean and the Dominican Republic. 

 

For reasons of conviction about sovereignty and non-alignment, the English speaking Caribbean and Cuba continue to place great importance on finding multilateral solutions through the UN and continue to stress that there must be balance in their economic relationship with the United States. 

 

In contrast, for many months now, the Dominican Republic Government has been seeking alternative ways to enter rapidly into a free trade agreement with the US. It has variously courted the US in the context of Caricom, the Central American Common Market and Panama and even proposed to the US a bilateral DR/US free trade arrangement. Up to very recently all these approaches have been rebuffed leaving the Dominican Government isolated. 

 

But on March 6 the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) changed its position. It agreed ‘to consider’ the Dominican Republic for inclusion in a free trade area with Central America. “The United States”, a USTR statement said, “expressed its willingness to consider options, such as docking the Dominican Republic to the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), at the appropriate time." The USTR also noted that it had agreed to expand the dialogue in order to keep the Dominican government up to date on developments in the same negotiations.



The announcement in a joint statement came after months of internal disagreement between the Dominican Republic Government and key elements of its business community which ended when the Dominican President agreed to concessions that make more attractive to the US the Dominican Republic’s membership in any free trade agreement. Amongst the offers made was an agreement to scrap recently enacted compulsory licensing provisions and to restrict parallel imports of certain goods in favour of US products including essential medicines. 

 

But more significantly still, it appears that another cost may have been Dominican Republic’s support for the US war on Iraq.


On March 25 the Foreign Minister, Hugo Tolentino Dipp, resigned over differences with President Hipólito Mejia. According to Dominican sources his decision followed an announcement by the President that the Dominican Republic formally supported the United States in its war with Iraq despite earlier Foreign Ministry statements suggesting significant reservations. It also followed revelations that both the Vice President Milagros Ortiz Bosch and the Foreign Minister had been instructed not to make any public statements critical of US policy regarding the situation in the Middle East and that the US had listed the Dominican Republic among the nations that support the war. 

 

This stands in stark contrast to the stance of the rest of the Caribbean, which has made clear that it will ignore coercive US approaches on the subject. 

 

Caricom has been unwavering in its support for a multilateral approach to resolution of the war in Iraq. Speaking recently about this, Jamaica’s Prime Minister, PJ Patterson, noted that “this was not an issue for any state acting alone, but for the international community”. Jamaica, he said and its sister CARICOM states, as well as members of the non-aligned Movement, had stressed that any unilateral action taken outside of a UN Security Council mandate - even with the support of a number of member states - would undermine the integrity of the United Nations. 


The Dominican Republic’s relationship to Caricom has been ambiguous for some months now whether it be in trade negotiations with Europe, at the WTO or in the Americas. So much so that in private senior European officials and ACP diplomats seem uncertain about the extent to which the Dominican position can be regarded as a part of or apart from that of the rest of the Caribbean. This is unfortunate as both the Dominican Republic and Caricom have much to offer each other.



Linguistic, historic and cultural experience continues to divide the region. For these reasons it is to be hoped that differences, where they exist, are of tone rather than substance and can be resolved before the region as a whole comes to negotiate the fine detail of future trade relationships. 

 

Significantly differing perspectives on the Caribbean’s role in the Americas suggests that there should be much greater emphasis on a high level dialogue between the Dominican Republic and its Anglophone neighbours before any differences become irreconcilable.

 

David Jessop is the Director of the Caribbean Council and can be contacted at [log in to unmask]

March 28th, 2003




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