The Anti-Development Dimension of the European Community's Economic Partnership Agreement for the Caribbean

• Author: Havelock R. Brewster
• Pages: 248-257

THE ANTI-DEVELOPMENT DIMENSION

OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY’S ECONOMIC

PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT FOR THE CARIBBEAN

Havelock R. Brewster1

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will allow for economies of scale, will improve

the level of specialisation, will increase the

competitiveness of the ACP States and will

help them attract investment.”

In other words, the ACP countries, by

opening up their markets freely to European

goods, services and companies (and by regional

integration), will be transformed into a state

of development – via an impressive chain of

unproven, theoretical assumptions. The EPA

itself is replete with development rhetoric, and

references to the development objectives of

the Agreement, beginning with Part 1, Article

1- Objectives, most, if not all, of which are

compromised by the content of the Agreement

itself. Nowhere in the Agreement is there a

direct, targeted attack on the basic supply-side

problem, let alone binding commitments to

cooperate in putting in place a complement

of measures aimed at this problem. And yet,

this is an Agreement that purports to be an

economic partnership agreement.

The lessons at once to be drawn from this

are that: it was a fatal mistake for CARIFORUM

(CF) to have accepted, practically without

revision, and to have entered into a

negotiation based on a template, provided

by the European Commission, containing its

own in-built ideological agenda; that CF failed

to foster ACP and Group of 77 solidarity in

support of their interests, and similar concerns

by the other ACP regions and the developing

world as a whole; that CF neglected to use the

leverage of the EU Member States themselves,

and of the European and their own Non-

Introduction

The basic development problem of the

African-Caribbean-Pacif‌ic Group of Countries

(ACP), including those with relatively

high incomes due to their endowment

with petroleum and tourism resources, is

inadequate, uncompetitive and undiversif‌ied

productive capacity. Yet the present Agreement

that the European Community (EC) has

designed for them, that purports to be an

Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), is

almost entirely about market access and other

trade-related modalities. The EC makes no

secret of its theory that it expects “the trade

policy framework to deliver development”.

This is so notwithstanding the fact that, over

the thirty-two year history of these Agreements

with the EC, this has just not happened. In

fact, the ACP has fallen far behind Asia and

Latin America in terms of their export share to

the European market.

More specif‌ically, this is how the

European Commission rationalises its

position: “by establishing a stable, predictable

and transparent framework for economic and

trade relations between the ACP countries

and the EU, EPAs are intended to mobilise

economic operators at local, national, regional,

and international levels, and to promote local

activity and attract regional and international

investment. By removing border measures to

trade between parties, as well as other factors

causing market fragmentation, they will

enlarge the markets of ACP countries which