CARIBBEA I TEGRATIO A D ‘GLOBAL EUROPE’
IMPLICATIO S OF THE EPA FOR THE CSME
orman Girvan1
I. Introduction
Since 1989 the countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) have been constructing
the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME)2; an economic integration scheme that
responds to globalisation by means of Open Regionalism. The urgency of economic
diversification has been underlined by the erosion of preferences for Caricom’s
traditional exports in the European market as a result of challenges mounted under WTO
rules. The replacement of the EU’s non-reciprocal trade preferences for the African
Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries under the Lome agreement (1975), and
temporarily extended under the Cotonou Agreement (2000), is to be effected under
Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with ACP countries. EPA negotiations were
concluded with the ‘Cariforum group’3 in December 2007.
EPAs are negotiated under a mandate from the Cotonou Partnership Agreement to
conclude ‘WTO compatible’ trade agreements that promote sustainable development,
poverty reduction, regional integration within ACP groups, and the gradual integration of
ACP countries into the world economy4. However, the content of the Cariforum-EU EPA
is in accordance with the objectives of the EU’s ‘Global Europe’ project5; which seeks to
use bilateral trade agreements to prize open developing country markets to European
firms and secure binding WTO-plus commitments in the EU’s bilateral trade agreements.
This chapter argues that the EPA’s emphasis on reciprocal trade and investment
liberalization, and its binding of neo-liberal policy regimes, ...