Sistema Económico Latinoamericano y del Caribe Latin American and Caribbean Economic System Sistema Econômico Latino-Americano e do Caribe Système Economique Latinoaméricain et Caribéen Speech by Dr. Neville Bissember Jr. Assistant General Counsel Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Regional Seminar on Economic Relations between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean Caracas, Venezuela 26 February 2007 SP/SR-REUE-ALC/Di Nº 6 07
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1 Thank you Dr. Romero for those words of introduction and of course, I think that I must start off first of all, by thanking you and your team for organizing this Seminar and of course the invitation for the Secretary-General to attend, but unfortunately he could not be here himself. Let me just quickly before I proceed, clarify something I saw on the programme, which says that I am the Assistant General Counsel and Officer in Charge of CARICOM, and you might be wondering how I could be the Officer in Charge of CARICOM when at the same time there is the Secretary-General, that is a typographical error, or else I lose my job while I am here. I am in fact the Officer in charge of the Legal Division, not the Officer in Charge of the CARICOM Secretariat. The Secretary-General Mr. Carrington is in fact the Officer in charge substantively of the Secretariat, so I apologize for that error in the programme. But nevertheless, thanks for having me here. I think that this morning we heard in passing, perhaps somewhat jocularly, from the representative of Chile, about how different the climate was between here and in Europe and you yourself Mr. Chairman, said that this afternoon we would hear from a different perspective of further North in this part of the world, and further North in South America. I think there may in fact be more than passing significance in those words and it may perhaps be a question of perspective, or perhaps of perceptions, or both, but I think having looked at the paper that we were asked to educate ourselves on, there were in fact some differences, as I said either in perspectives or perceptions, and perhaps I could refer to some of them quickly before making some further comments. Certainly on page 6 of the paper on the follow-up to the economic and cooperation relations, on page 6 of the paper, and I have the English version of course, which I would imagine is a faithful translation of the Spanish. There is a phrase there which says and I quote it quickly, starting negotiation processes with a view to materializing partnership agreements, including trade liberalization between the EU and the various sub-regional integration groups, and those are listed, MERCOSUR, Andean Community and CACM, would send a very positive signal to investors and I think that the first comment we would want to make from the CARICOM perspective is that in fact, we have already started our negotiations, this talks about starting negotiations, we have in fact already started talking to our European friends in an economic and trade liberalization negotiation, but perhaps more importantly, the paper itself makes no mention of that. The paper in fact does not mention the CARICOM Community as it does here, various sub-regional integration groups, neither does it mention the fact that we already have started negotiations with the Europeans, which according to the timetable that we have with them, should be concluded by the end of this year 2007, because we had in fact received a waiver from the WTO for some of the preferential trade arrangements that we had inherited from a previous cooperation arrangement. I think again, from our perspective, already I think that the thrust of the paper does not make mention of that and maybe in passing, I could just clarify something for you, I think this morning we had a representative here from the Dominican Republic: it might be interesting for our friends from South and Central America to understand that even though in the context of our regional integration system, the Organization in fact is CARICOM and the Caribbean Community, for the purposes of the negotiations for the economic partnership agreement with the European Union, we in fact negotiate as CARIFORUM, which is the membership of the Caribbean Community, plus the Dominican Republic. I think that is an important distinction that we very often want to make to our
2 friends, because for the moment the Dominican Republic is not a member of the Caribbean Community, but they had a prior existing relationship with the European Union, with the other Caribbean countries in the context of the Lomé relationship, and now the Cotonou Agreement, so you would see in those EPA negotiations, the European Union negotiating with CARIFORUM which as I said is CARICOM, plus the Dominican Republic. Again, in the paper on page 7, there is a reference there which reads as follows, and again I read it quickly: one of the most important achievements of the Fourth Summit was the firm decision to hold negotiations between the EU and the CACM, for an association agreement that envisages the free trade area, and then it goes on to refer to ratification of the Central American Treaty. Again, there is no reference there to the relationships that we already have with the European Union and if certainly, it is put in the terms of an important achievement about a decision to hold negotiations we would have thought from a Caribbean perspective, that if there were already negotiations ongoing, that all the more would be worthy of mention as an already important relationship in the relations between Latin America and the Caribbean, the Wider Group and the European Union. Again, it says the position adopted by the EU to keep favouring the agreements with regional blocs. This is again on page 7, we have one in process already, we already have a cooperation arrangement, when it talks about favouring agreement with regional blocs, we in fact have inherited through a long and sometimes turbulent relationship with our partners in Europe, an economic and trade relationship which began years ago as far back as 1973 in the Lomé Convention and has now been succeeded in 2000 by the Cotonou Agreement for a range of trade and economic and aid arrangements that continue to be enforced and similarly, as I am saying from a perspective of CARICOM, we would have thought that these arrangements ought to have been reflected in the paper, so our cooperation is ongoing and it has been ongoing for a number of years, in fact for decades. The reality of course is that, that relationship which began in Lomé and as I said was continued in the Cotonou Agreement, was based on a number of prior arrangements through our colonial past, not only with the United Kingdom which largely was the colonizing power in the Caribbean, but also with France and if you consider the Lomé arrangements, it goes even beyond the CARICOM to Africa and the Pacific. There was a strong historical link there, which formed the basis for those arrangements which continue to exist now, but of course things are changing. We have an expanded European Union, we now have to contend with a series of rules and regulations coming out of Geneva, through the WTO system and the reality is that what we enjoyed over the years in terms of non-reciprocal preferential access to the European market, is no longer fashionable so, yes we have a relationship, yes I think that relationship needs to inform what we do as we move forward in our conversations with the European Union, but nevertheless, I think for our purposes, that is a fundamental distinction in the relations that the European Union has with the Caribbean as distinct from Latin America. And I think that it is important for the analysis as we search for solutions, to mark that distinction, because there is a lot going into the relationship which certainly, as we look beyond 2007 with the end of our European Union EPA negotiations, we would want to see some elements of those arrangements maintained, but definitely I think that the distinction needs to be made between the existing relationship that the EU has with the Caribbean on the one hand, and on the other with South America and Central America. On page 8 of the document, there is a reference to Overseas Development Assistance from the European Union quarter and in fact, the paragraph concludes by saying Germany and Spain are the main donors of European ODA to Latin America and the Caribbean. There are some historical analyses there in the paragraph itself, but suffice it to say that certainly the experience we have had in CARICOM, is that France is still a significant contributor. I
3 am not quite sure how the statement - the one that I have just read about Germany and Spain being the main donors - I am not quite sure how that statement would go down in some capitals in Europe and you know information is power, this kind of statement as bald as it is, without qualifications, which might be read in some capitals in Europe, it might not be as acceptable, but suffice is to say, certainly if you take the perspective of Haiti over the years, and this paragraph refers to 1990s, I think that the French Government has still maintained a significant amount of ODA coming into, certainly in the Caribbean region. Again on page 8, there is a reference to the priorities that are set in the Summits between the European Union and Latin America and the Caribbean and there is a reference there to Horizontal Programmes, which are listed in footnote 15 on page 8 and once again, if you look at the arrangements that are mentioned there, allocated to the regional level for Latin America and the Caribbean, there is no mention of cooperation arrangements with the Caribbean. As I said Mr. Chairman, it might be an issue of perspective, but the idea is that as we seek to engage the European Union Group as a whole, those perspectives need to be taken into good account. I suppose happily by contrast I believe, on page 9, there is a reference which I think does in fact mention the two sub-regions together. It says, in accordance with the mutual interest of both regions, this refers to how we need to treat with the European Union. It says the ongoing reform process of the EU development policy should be deepened, this means that cooperation to Latin America and the Caribbean should cease to be fragmentary, dispersed and more often than not inconsistent, should follow coherent strategic vision in accordance with the mutual interest of both regions, so at least there is the recognition that the Caribbean does form part of the Group but as I said, given some of those historical antecedents, we might need to be careful as to how we apply the solutions, given as we might in fact be coming from different origins and different perspectives. Finally, I think on page 10 of the paper, there is a reference there, which says that as far as the Caribbean is concerned it will continue to receive cooperation from the Lomé funds, for African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. There are two things wrong about, as I said earlier, Lomé has since been succeeded by Cotonou, as a matter of fact, the Lomé Convention came to an end in 2000, when we negotiated yet another five-year plan under the Lomé Convention but it was changed to the Cotonou Agreement, for the simple reason that the Agreement was signed in Cotonou, Benin and it took the name of the city where the signing ceremony took place. I think that these days we refer more to Cotonou than to Lomé, but as regards the reference to continuing to receive cooperation the reality is this, we signed the Cotonou Agreement in 2000 and it was supposed to last for 20 years. We recently had a first five-year renewal so we went into the second five-year plan under that Cotonou Agreement. The question has arisen as to what form of development cooperation assistance, similar to what we have under Cotonou, what will that look like beyond 2020 and it is something that is already engaging our attention, but certainly to speak about the continuation, we ought to acknowledge that legal mark as it were, in terms of the termination of the Cotonou Agreement in 2020, lest we assume too much. Secondly, as I said earlier, we had in fact, after negotiating the Cotonou Agreement in 2000, we had managed to get a waiver from the WTO for the preferential arrangements under Cotonou, which expires at the end of this year and that also begs the question again about the continuation of the relationship. We are in negotiations now with the European Union for the trade aspects of the Cotonou arrangement. Those negotiations are supposed to end at the end of this year. We are negotiating alongside the other regions in the ACP, there are four in Africa and one in the Pacific. The reality is
4 that of the six regions, there are different stages of negotiations and there is some alarm in some quarters that we might get to 2007 and not have an agreement in all six regions. Again, just to flag the point about the reference to continuing to receive cooperation, you need to take those marks into account: (1) 2007 December, when the waiver expires for the preferential arrangements, and (2) 2020 when in fact the Cotonou Agreement is due to expire, and perhaps it is here more than anything else, as we seek to prepare ourselves for dealing with our European friends, I think that it is here perhaps, that we need to look at some of the things you were discussing this morning. There is a view which is gaining currency that Europe is going to look at us through the same prism, notwithstanding some of the distinctions I just mentioned about Cotonou, about the history, about the fact that we had a cooperation agreement for years; the reality is that when they look out of Brussels to this part of the world, they will see Latin America and the Caribbean as one, and if that is in fact the case, then I think some of the things that we were discussing this morning, we need to look at. Of course, some of these issues are addressed in the paper. Certainly the analysis in the paper has some merits, if only for the simple reason that the realization is there that we do in fact need, within Latin America and the Caribbean, to deepen our integration with the European Union, if only for the simple reason that they themselves have advanced way ahead of us in terms of integration and we in the Caribbean Community are moving certainly along those lines in terms of establishing a single market and economy, not unlike what the European Union has, but certainly there is an imperative for deepening our integration amongst ourselves. Of course, the question is how to deepen the integration? Over the years in CARICOM - Ambassador Ali will correct me if I am wrong, she is an expert on CARICOM - we always speak of concentric circles and building on what already exists. The reality is we already have a Caribbean integration movement and there is a Central American integration movement, but in South America, I think there is no integration movement or a comparable arrangement in terms of what we are doing say, in terms of a common market or what the CACM is moving towards, and perhaps that is one of the reasons why your paper refers to, as you call it, sovereign cooperation, which is not the whole coordinated approach that we have in CARICOM. In fact, in the Caribbean Community, we have passed that stage of sovereign cooperation to the extent that we have a functioning integration system based on a legally binding treaty and one of the pillars of the cooperation arrangement under the revised treaty of Chaguaramas, is in fact a coordinated foreign policy and coordinated economic and international economic policy, so I think if we are looking at models of cooperation and how we deal with organizing ourselves, the Caribbean Community might actually have some lessons to share with our South American friends, because our common market arrangement is moving full speed ahead. We have just last year inaugurated the CARICOM Single Market which has a number of arrangements as I said, not dissimilar to what exists in the European Union in terms of the movement of skills, labour and now we are moving towards new areas for example, the rights of establishment for a national of one CARICOM country to go and live in another CARICOM country and enjoy the same rights as if he were in fact a national of the second country. We already have a full basis for cooperation which I do not think that you can see as yet for the moment in South America. If we are in fact to deepen integration and as I said, we heard some of these things this morning, I think that it must be done on the basis of some fundamental principles and if all the States are guided by those principles, it should probably or would lead to greater cooperation, which is what CARICOM would wish to see in the LAC process. I think that it was our colleague from MERCOSUR this morning who referred to
5 some of those principles, and we heard in the earlier presentation about preparatory dialogue, internal cohesion and I believe the phrase used was the common channel of action and certainly, I think what we would like to see is a basis upon which to build that common channel and the basis for that would really be provided by a set of common principles that we could adhere to. There is no mystery again to those principles but certainly, I can just mention a few that from the CARICOM perspective would be acceptable. Continued adherence to the principles of good governance, sustainability of small and vulnerable States, human rights, principles of human rights, rule of law, peaceful resolution of disputes: these are common ideas and there is no mystery to them but I think that what we would want to see is a basis for the cooperation arrangements, for the integration arrangements, built on some commonly accepted principles and perhaps as I am referring back to what was said this morning, maybe I could just respond at the same time to some other things that were said. I think you wanted to build your new arrangements and as you put it, using the existing structures. This has to do with the fact that there is nothing new that we are going to create and you mentioned SELA and ECLAC and I put a note there that there is no mention of CARICOM. Maybe that is why we got a question later in the morning, I believe from the Ambassador of Jamaica, about the existing institutions because again, if you look at the region as a whole, we certainly in the CARICOM Secretariat have done quite a lot in terms of those integration arrangements, so maybe somewhere along there when you mentioned SELA and ECLAC, you would probably want to mention the CARICOM Secretariat. The third element in your arrangement in the paper talks about a diplomatic network to disseminate information in Brussels and to talk to the European Union and the European Parliament. Maybe just to say in passing that again in CARICOM, we have an arrangement of joint representation at the diplomatic level. It is not quite the same thing I believe as what you are referring to, but take some of the smaller territories in the OECS, the Organization of Eastern States: they have a joint mission in Geneva, they have a joint mission in Brussels and even at the larger CARICOM level, we had been looking at joint representation in some of the far-flung capitals, so already we do that kind of thing in terms of how we would articulate a position and to negotiate in Brussels or anywhere else, so that certainly is something that we already have within our structure. The language issue: among friends, we could raise it, the language issue is going to become relevant at some stage. Once we seek closer forms of cooperation, we will have to decide how we deal with that. In my previous life in the ACP Secretariat in Brussels, you had to work in English and French. There was no way to get around it because a large amount of the States work in French and others work in English, so that is something I think we need to flag. I do not think that it is referred to at all but certainly, at some stage we would want to look at it. From MERCOSUR, the question was asked what priorities, or what mandate do we have to negotiate with the European Union. We have the answer to that already in CARICOM. CARIFORUM, when we negotiate with the European Union goes with a mandate which is decided by an entity which we call the Council for Trade and Economic Development which is a Ministerial Council, and we also have something called the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery which is the institution that actually deals with the technical aspects of the negotiation and provides in fact the lead negotiator, Ambassador Bernal from Jamaica, but that process is overseen by the Ministerial Council and again I think that if we look around the Latin American and Caribbean region, there is not that kind of structure, but already the answer is there, you probably might need some kind of structure along the lines that we have, and certainly we would be willing to share that kind of information.
6 I think again that coming back to stressing the point in relation to the question posed I believe, by the Ambassador of Jamaica, I believe it was you Mr. Chairman, that said that SELA is the International Institution that coordinates the economic negotiations. That may be true, but as I just explained to you, when we are negotiating with the European Union, it is the CRNM and the Council for Trade and Economic Development that deliberates, that gives policy. Maybe this is one of the issues that we need to address, because you were talking about sharing of information and sharing of experiences. Certainly SELA does not coordinate that process, but maybe some of the lessons we learned through that structure for negotiating with the European Union, we might want to share with you. To sum up, I think that it is true that CARIFORUM has a separate and distinct relationship with the European Union, even in Vienna at the last Summit. I think that because of the lack of coordination amongst ourselves, there were even interventions from Member States of the Latin American and Caribbean Groups that were divergent with each other and I think that is a fact. Certainly, we would wish to see at the next Summit, a little more coherence in the position that Latin America and the Caribbean takes and as I said earlier, perhaps the basis upon which that integration or that cooperation should proceed is on a set of agreed upon principles. Maybe we need a preliminary phase or a preliminary analysis to identify those principles before we actually push off down the road of integration or cooperation, whether it is sovereign coordination or whatever, to establish the basis for coordination. The question might be asked, are we only coordinating because we want to respond to the European Union and of course, the answer is no. But certainly as I said earlier, if we look further down the road beyond 2020, when perhaps from Europe, as they look out, they are going to be seeing us through the same prism, that alone might be one of the reasons, not the reason, one of the reasons, certainly to provide an imperative for some more intense coordination within the LAC Group and I think from the CARICOM perspective, we already have some ideas in terms of our integration movement that we could provide as the basis for some lessons for the Wider Group to learn. I think that my extra five minutes is up and I would leave it there, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.