Setting deadlines makes sense. It is good practice. It sharpens the mind, providing a target against which delivery can be measured. It encourages creative solutions.

Over the last ten days first trade ministers and then Caribbean heads of government have had the opportunity to debate first in Jamaica and then in St Vincent how best to address some of the inter-regional problems that face the Caribbean in its negotiations with Europe for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).

Towards the end of 2006 it had become apparent that a number of fundamental issues central to reaching agreement with Europe remained unresolved including the geometry of the region (the nations to be included in an EPA); the nature of the tariff reduction commitments that would have to be made; the position of sugar and bananas in an EPA, and the negotiating deadline. This in turn had led to exchanges between ministers about issues as fundamental as the institutional structure for the negotiations and the extent to which the negotiations were responding to the political will of the region.

What is now apparent – although hard for anyone to judge from the opaque section on EPAs in the communiqu