To be clear, EPA is not called Economic Partnership Agreement for nothing. It is a not a Development Aid package but rather a trade agreement, one of many, such as its predecessor the Cotonou Agreement signed in 2000. EPA seeks to realign the business/trade relationships which were granted to ACP countries under a preferential agreement, reached at time of the signing of the entry of the UK to the European Union in 1972. In time, there has been a gradual change of these preferential trade relations between the Caribbean, African and Pacific regions and the EU. This is evident, amongst others, from the downturn in the regions’ sugar and banana industries.

The concerns voiced by the academics is typical of a “reactive approach” taken by peoples of our region. The academics claimed that representatives have made the deal of EPA with their eyes wide shut. The truth is, it is not for the representatives to make deals. They are channels of information. It is for the elected Caribbean leaders to make sensible decisions on our behalf. At this point, leaders are aware, or at least should have been aware, of the consequences of the UK’s membership of the EU. There was time enough, more than 30 years, in which our leaders should have created a strategic plan in which Jamaica, after almost 46 years of independence, would have been able to step up to the challenges of playing ball on an unlevel international field.

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