San­dra Chouthi

St Georges, Grena­da

The Eu­ro­pean Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA) is more than an agree­ment that re­gion­al gov­ern­ments signed in 2008, but im­pacts the lives of every sin­gle fam­i­ly in mem­ber states of the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com). So said Allyson Fran­cis, trade in ser­vices and in­vest­ment spe­cial­ist, EPA Im­ple­men­ta­tion Unit of the Cari­com sec­re­tari­at.

"The re­gion has to im­ple­ment the EPA to achieve the ob­jec­tives set in it. It is a de­vel­op­ment-ori­ent­ed agree­ment," said Fran­cis. She was speak­ing about busi­ness and mar­ket op­por­tu­ni­ties for Car­i­fo­rum ser­vices providers in the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU), at a two-day re­gion­al me­dia work­shop on the EPA in St Georges, Grena­da, on Mon­day.

Car­i­fo­rum com­pris­es 14 mem­bers of Cari­com, plus Cu­ba and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic and was formed to co­or­di­nate ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the coun­tries and the Eu­ro­pean Union. "Why are we im­ple­ment­ing the agree­ment? Not just be­cause we have some com­mit­ments. I think we can have some ben­e­fits," Fran­cis said.

In a Pow­er­Point pre­sen­ta­tion, the fast-talk­ing Fran­cis said her man­date is to set the en­vi­ron­ment for trade in ser­vices and in­vest­ment, and that the pri­vate sec­tor can make max­i­mum use of the agree­ment. She said if ful­ly used, the EPA can as­sist in erad­i­cat­ing pover­ty, pro­mote re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion and in­crease pri­vate sec­tor in­vest­ment.

Fran­cis said many of the re­gion's oblig­a­tions con­tained in the EPA should have been im­ple­ment­ed up­on sig­na­ture four years ago, or no lat­er than six months af­ter pro­vi­sion­al ap­pli­ca­tion. "Now, we are in 2012, so you have to un­der­stand, we are be­hind," Fran­cis said.

The Cari­com of­fi­cial said the EPA Im­ple­men­ta­tion Unit at the Cari­com sec­re­tari­at gets "bashed" that it's not do­ing cer­tain things, but the unit has de­vel­oped a road map for re­gion­al im­ple­men­ta­tion of the EPA.

"We are es­tab­lished to fa­cil­i­tate. We can­not im­ple­ment. We can on­ly fa­cil­i­tate im­ple­men­ta­tion. We can draft laws, draft mo­bil­i­sa­tion, and sub­mit to mem­ber states, but it is for mem­ber states to take it be­yond and pass it through the process of re­fin­ing it and put things in place," Fran­cis said.

Goods and ser­vices

Fran­cis made a clear dis­tinc­tion be­tween trade in goods and trade in ser­vices, us­ing a can of peas as an ex­am­ple of the for­mer, and that ser­vices that "touch every­thing." Re­gard­ing tourism, Fran­cis said one has to look at the in­puts, not just the pro­vi­sion of a ser­vice, but the qual­i­ty of the prod­ucts of­fered, such as the equip­ment avail­able in a dive shop.

She ques­tioned how can trade in ser­vices take place with­out prop­er in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy (ICT). "An­oth­er thing about ser­vices we have to con­sid­er is that a ser­vice is not just some­thing out there. A large per­cent­age of a good, the fi­nal prod­uct you see in the mar­ket is ac­tu­al­ly a ser­vice."

She spoke of re­search and de­vel­op­ment, ed­u­ca­tion, mar­ket­ing, ad­ver­tis­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion as ser­vices. "It is im­por­tant for you to have a grasp of the con­nec­tions that ser­vices have with every­thing else and be able to sell them," she said.

Fran­cis said the me­dia's role re­gard­ing the EPA goes be­yond rais­ing aware­ness of the agree­ment, but rather sell­ing the agree­ment to all stake­hold­ers.

Re­gion­al pref­er­ences

She said the im­por­tance of re­gion­al pref­er­ences in terms of op­por­tu­ni­ties is to give clar­i­ty to the re­gion's sup­pli­ers and ser­vice providers in terms of the trade agree­ment Cari­com signed with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. That agree­ment fo­cus­es on goods, has a ser­vice com­po­nent, but con­tains no sched­ule to de­vel­op ser­vices.

"Ar­ti­cle 238 of the EPA says what­ev­er you give to Eu­ro­peans, you have to give to your­selves. We have a whole sched­ule of com­mit­ments for all mem­ber states. We're giv­ing to the EU, but we do not have a sched­ule be­tween us, as Cari­com and the DR," Fran­cis said. She said Ar­ti­cle 238 hope­ful­ly pro­vides an en­vi­ron­ment of trans­paren­cy and pre­dictabil­i­ty for ser­vice providers so they can un­der­stand the op­por­tu­ni­ties open to them in the treat­ment be­tween Cari­com and the DR.

Mov­ing the EPA for­ward

Fran­cis said the EPA Im­ple­men­ta­tion Unit has de­vel­oped a ma­trix which is up­dat­ed every few months to de­ter­mine where mem­ber states are re­gard­ing the EPA, so the unit has an idea what in­sti­tu­tions mem­ber states have de­vel­oped. She said an im­por­tant as­pect of ser­vices and in­vest­ments is en­sur­ing mem­ber states have the right pol­i­cy and reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work in place.

Fran­cis said she found many Cari­com states work in "si­los," so that an ICT pol­i­cy has no idea about re­search and de­vel­op­ment or con­struc­tion ser­vices, that there is some­times no con­sid­er­a­tion of the link­age be­tween dif­fer­ent de­part­ments.