This would get the EU and the ACP over the hurdle of having to complete agreements that are compatible with rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) by December 31st when a waiver of the existing trade regime between the EU and ACP runs out. 

Negotiations between the EU and the six groups within the ACP have proven to be difficult.  

The greatest difficulties have come from the EU’s insistence on ACP countries opening up their economies to EU service companies and investment.

On the services aspect, many ACP countries fear that their local businesses will be pushed out of their own domestic markets by EU companies with deeper pockets.  In addition, the ACP countries are keenly aware that whatever they agree with the EU will be used as a standard by other countries with whom they negotiate trade and investment arrangements.  Therefore, local ACP businesses would eventually face competition not only from EU companies but others as well.

And while most ACP countries welcome foreign investment, they want to preserve some areas of the economy for local entrepreneurs to establish and grow.

The issue is less about permitting foreign investment for which many countries have granted attractive incentives; it is more about trying to preserve space for domestic companies to operate successfully.

The inclusion of these items on the agenda of the EPAs – especially a right for EU companies to get ACP government contracts – pre empts global negotiations under the WTO where agreement has so far been elusive.

Many ACP countries do not want to concede to the EU what has not been achieved in global trade negotiations.

Now that the EU will no longer insist that the EPAs by year-end should cover services and liberalise rules for investment and government procurement, interim agreements that are WTO compatible appear possible with many if not all the ACP states.

By all accounts it looks as if, of the three regions, the Caribbean is most likely to reach a comprehensive agreement with the EU.

While all the terms of what has been agreed and what is still being negotiated are not widely known, the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) has clearly indicated that, on the issue of giving market access to the EU, the region can table a WTO-compatible offer that protects sensitive areas through a long exclusion list with phasing-in periods of up to 25 years.

It is understood that the EU has also agreed to a specific allocation of 33 million euros to help the Caribbean with the implementation of the terms of the EPA.  This is said to be in addition to an allocation for EPA implementation that exists in an allocation from the European Development Fund.

Even though the monies are not earth shattering, they are, at least, a demonstration of a willingness by the EU to recognise that the EPAs will cause dislocation in Caribbean economies for which they will need real help if they are to cushion the blows.

The tragedy of these negotiations is two fold:  in general terms, it remains a severe disadvantage to the ACP countries that they did not enter these negotiations as one unit as they did in the past when they negotiated the Lome Convention and then the Cotonou agreement with the EU. 

Had they done so, they would have been stronger and better able to bargain for better terms. They were fortunate that powerful non-governmental organisations in Europe fought their cause and made it a political issue in many key European capitals causing the EU Commissioners to retreat from stridency.

Of course, getting the ACP countries to agree on a set of proposals would not have been easy.  There are varying requirements in each region and even in smaller groups within the regions.  But within that “variable geometry”, it would still have been possible to advance proposals to the EU that took account of the need for countries to be categorised differently.

The second tragedy of the negotiations in strictly Caribbean terms has been the paucity of public discussion of the issues surrounding the EPAs, the failure of the private sector and other public institutions, such as the region’s universities, to seek meaningful participation in them, and the lack of greater empowerment of the CRNM.

Apart from the Caribbean Hotels Association, few other private sector organisations have sought to engage their governments or the EU directly in discussion of the EPAs.  The one country that has been an exception to this rule is the Dominican Republic whose private sector, it is reported, has participated in large numbers and taken full advantage of the access to the negotiations given to them by their government.

As for the CRNM, its representatives have been negotiating with the European Commission (EC).  The difference between these two bodies is that the EC is an institution of the EU fully and legally empowered to negotiate on behalf of all the EU member states on a mandate give to them by a Council of Ministers.  The Commissioners have real authority.  The CRNM, on the other hand, does not even have a legal identity. 

Brought into being to negotiate in three sets of hazardous trade theatres (the EU, the WTO and the Free Trade of Americas Area), the CRNM has struggled to pull Caribbean states together and to get them to agree on common negotiating positions.  This has not been easy.  It has also struggled to secure funding for its work from within the region, and such external funding as it has received has been adversely affected by its lack of a legal identity.  Within the WTO it has no formal recognition.

The CRNM has done well to be on the brink of an agreement with the EU that would give the Caribbean continued market access to Europe on terms better than the EU’s generalised system of preferences which all developing countries get and would, therefore, give the Caribbean no advantage.

The question is: could the CRNM have done better had it been part of a Caribbean Commission empowered by regional treaty and the national law of its member states?  In other words, the equal of the European Commission.