Postponement of the latest Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meeting could be an ominous indicator of a difficult road ahead in talks aimed at concluding that agreement, which is envisaged for 34 countries in the Western Hemisphere, a high-level negotiator said on Saturday.
According to Dr. Richard Bernal, director general of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), unexpected delays in concluding an FTAA agreement could have a negative long-term impact on the proposed trade arrangement.
Western Hemisphere governments had originally committed to achieving substantial progress toward building the FTAA by 2000 and completing negotiations by this year.
Dr. Bernal pointed out, however, that persistent disagreement between FTAA co-chairs – the United States and Brazil – combined with other “complex and contentious” issues like intellectual property rights and subsidies in the agricultural sector have effectively brought the negotiations to a standstill.
The director general noted that the co-chairs were expected to have a meeting earlier this month, but that round of talks was postponed until May 12.
“There is no guarantee that in that meeting they will resolve all the issues, but we need to have this done I would say by June or July so that negotiations can resume,” Dr. Bernal said from Kingston, Jamaica in an interview with the Bahama Journal.
“My concern is that if the disagreements persist and are not resolved on a timely basis many countries in the hemisphere may lose interest in the FTAA process,” he added.
Dr. Bernal suggested that in an effort to resolve the issues dividing them, the co-chairs could consider convening a small, representative meeting with groups of countries from areas such as the Caribbean, Central America and the Andean region with the hope of finding the flexibility that has thus far eluded the United States and Brazil.
Commenting on the recent trend of some nations to forge bilateral agreements in order to liberalise trade with other jurisdictions, Dr. Bernal said while that option continues to be available to the region, CARICOM at this time remains committed to the multilateral FTAA.
“The CARICOM group has always been active in negotiating bilateral arrangements,” he said.
“We currently have bilateral arrangements with Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. We are currently engaged in the early stages of a negotiation with Canada and we are similarly in an exploratory phase with Mercosur. So bilateral arrangements are something that CARICOM believes to be useful.”
The director general added that CARICOM has not yet made a decision on whether to pursue a more liberalised bilateral trade arrangement with the United States, as the region is waiting to see if the FTAA process will come to fruition.
He cautioned, however, that delaying that decision could prove to be disadvantageous.
“There is no guarantee that the US will respond by saying ‘Yes, we are anxious to negotiate a bilateral with the Caribbean countries,'” said Dr. Bernal.
“Also the question which arises is where would we fall in the queue of countries which are now negotiating bilateral arrangements. It might be a long while before we could commence negotiations.”
The CRNM director general advised that notwithstanding the lengthy negotiation process CARICOM countries should remain actively involved in preparing for the FTAA and other important trade negotiations.
He pointed out that the CRNM continues to pursue a “very, very busy” schedule of trade talks on behalf of CARICOM member states.
“The World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations are proceeding, the negotiations for the European Union are also proceeding, and we are doing the early stages of negotiations with Canada and Mercosur so we have a full slate of activities,” said Dr. Bernal.
“What we will do while the FTAA is still in a hiatus is to deploy our human and financial resources on the other negotiations while we await resumption of the FTAA process.”
He added that the process of continuing WTO and EU negotiations is helping the region to prepare for the FTAA because all three arrangements address similar subject matter such as agriculture, services and investments.
By: Darrin Culmer, The Bahama Journal
