ISDS Case Map
Caribbean
To the incomprehension of some in Brussels, the relationship between the Caribbean and the European Commission has now reached the level of confrontation over the development orientation of economic partnership agreements (EPAs).
One of the little understood aspects of the negotiations for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with Europe is that it requires the determination of which nations constitute the region.
The European Commission's objective is to ''establish an enhanced partnership through a network of association agreements (including free trade agreements) involving all the countries of the [Latin America and Caribbean] region and liable to contribute to the integration of the region as a whole.''
Farmers from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean states have expressed interest in holding some form of action similar to that at the launch of the Economic Partnership Agreement in St. Lucia last September.
The Barbados-based Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) says it is conducting a study to inform Caribbean Community (CARICOM) states of the merits of negotiating a Free Trade Area (FTA) with the United States.
Six nations - Jamaica, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago - became the first full members of the Caribbean Single Market Economy as the treaty went into effect on 1 January.
William Jefferson Clinton once said that “the opposition to globalisation in the world is rooted in people who feel left out, left behind and stepped on in other countries.” Apparently, having accepted our status as doormats, the developing world has once again sent our highest authorities to the other end of the world to continue to hammer out a trade deal that maintains our city-mouse/country-mouse dynamic.
The Heads of State and/or Government of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), during the Panama Summit held in July of this year, recognised in its Declaration, “the importance of having a Framework Agreement for the Promotion and Reciprocal Protection of Investments among ACS members, an instrument that will help to promote, protect and confer legal certainty on investments ...”
Farmers from across the Caribbean took to the streets of the St Lucian capital, Castries on Friday to picket top European Union negotiators, who were meeting on the island.
EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson is in St Lucia today to launch the third phase of an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations between the European Union and the Caribbean region.
