The CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) : the Development Component

Estudo 02-04-2009

Executive summary The Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) between the Caribbean Forum (Cariforum) and the European Community (EC) is the only comprehensive EPA negotiated so far, and was signed by all parties (except Haiti) in October 2008. Now that the details have been finalised a start can be made to identify the likely development impact, and this report provides an initial assessment. Comprehensive changes to trade, investment and related policies produce profound and wideranging economic impacts, but do so gradually over time with multiple, cross-cutting effects. The impact of the EPA on the Cariforum states will be especially wide-ranging (because of its broad scope) and drawn out (because it will be implemented over 25 years). This report focuses on the likely early effects and their implications for European Union (EU) policy both because these are currently the highest development priority and because the scale and scope of later effects will take time (and a great deal of in-country research) to assess accurately. In commissioning the report, the European Parliament asked that it address four specific questions, with a focus on Barbados, Guyana and Suriname. These were to: ♦ identify the available financial resources (within the European Development Fund (EDF) and outside it); ♦ identify the needs of sectors and countries; ♦ identify the mode of delivery of the promised aid; ♦ assess the adequacy of the development chapter and other clauses of the Cariforum EPA and judge how these provisions could best be implemented to promote economic development in the region. Based on this analysis the authors were requested to make policy recommendations on how the development component of the EPA could be enhanced. [...]