by Trevor Yearwood

The Caribbean is going to be worse off if it does not finalise a new wide-ranging trade deal with Europe by the end of the year.

It won't be going back to the old preferential trade regime under which it shipped goods such as sugar and bananas
to Europe for decades.

It will be facing a less generous European Generalised System of Preferences (GSP).

Director-general of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Dr Richard Bernal, offered this assessment on Saturday.

He was briefing reporters at Hilton Barbados on negotiations between Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) countries and the European Union on an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Commenting on the position taken by some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that "no agreement is better than a rushed or bad agreement", he said:

"No agreement in this case is not a good position to be in. Why? The existing agreement ends on December 31. If we don't have something in place, in the form of an Economic Partnership Agreement, automatically (trading between the two sides) reverts to the European GSP, which is less advantageous . . . .

"We'll be worse off than if we are able to negotiate an EPA, which gives us good market access."

Bernal said the new trading regime would be "less advantageous" with respect to "the product coverage" and the level
of tariffs which goods would face going
into Europe.

However, the agreement was "largely finished' except for the issue of market access for goods, according to Bernal.

"In that respect, the region has been slow to take certain decisions and therefore we have not yet put a complete market access offer on behalf
of CARIFORUM," he said.

This was in response to the offer made by the European Union of duty-free, quota-free access to its market.

Duty-free, quota-free access was good for "some things in which you are competitive, but for other things where you have had preferential arrangements you are actually worse off", he pointed out.

Bernal also said regional negotiators were seeking an agreement that would offer Caribbean businesses a measure of protection, but pointed out that nothing could isolate businesses from international competition.

The reduction
of tariffs – a key prerequisite to free
trade – would take
place over a period
of 25 years, he said.