ISDS Case Map
Caribbean
Europe, unlike the Caribbean, is moving forward to establish the bodies and appoint the individuals that will from its perspective manage the implementation of the EU-Caribbean trade agreement.
A year and a half after Caribbean leaders inked a controversial and sweeping free trade pact with the European Union, concerns are emerging that the region is lagging in accessing some of its benefits
“Negotiating from Weakness” is the title of a paper written by Scott Sinclair of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Basically, the paper argues that in current negotiations with the European Union for a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Canada is negotiating from a position of weakness and this “is almost always a recipe for disaster”.
Even though Caribbean countries and the EU are supposed to be ‘partners’ under the EPA, the EC has denounced the Sugar Protocol causing Caribbean countries to lose their preferential price for sugar; the EC has agreed a new trade regime for bananas with exports from non African, Caribbean and Pacific countries that will decimate what is left of the banana industry in the Caribbean; and come June 20, the EC will renege on an undertaking to the Caribbean rum industry to help finance restructuring and marketing while at the same time reducing tariffs on competing rum from several Latin American countries.
When Caribbean leaders sit across the table from their European counterparts at a May summit in Spain, high on their agenda will be the problems experienced by banana and sugar producers in gaining meaningful access to the European market.
The European Commission has made new trade concessions to Colombia, Peru and Central America on sugar, rice, bananas and rum that may well provoke a Caribbean protest -- indeed, a turning away
The European Union (EU) has not included in the Lisbon Treaty a crucial article that was a feature of treaties between the EU and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.
Lessons from the EU-Caribbean FTA negotiating process in view of a possible Canada-CARICOM FTA, by Norman Girvan
As the global marketplace becomes more anaemic, the Caribbean Council will next month host a forum aimed at improving private businesses' understanding of how the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) will be implemented.
The World Bank says favourable treatment offered by Europe and North America has not helped the Caribbean's overall trade performance.
