The legal scrub of the Cariforum-European Commission (EC) Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) is completed and has been authorised by Heads of Cariforum countries for official release.
A press statement from the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) quoted the CRNM Director-General Ambassador Richard Bernal as explaining that the legal scrub was a “verification process that checked the agreement for errors and consistency in use of terminology.”
Bernal said the text has been distributed to member states where a process of legal review has been inaugurated to ensure consistency between the EPA and domestic laws.
He said that when that process was completed, the respective Cabinets could then confer authority to a minister to sign the agreement on behalf of the country.
It was previously agreed that signature of the EPA text would take place in April, but this would no longer be possible and it is now projected that the signing would now take place at the end of June.
Bernal explained that this was so because the legal scrub took longer than was anticipated and it was also necessary to allow member states enough time to complete their legal review of the text.
Meanwhile, the statement said the EC would be completing its internal process of translating the EPA text into all of the official languages of the European Union (EU). In addition, the College of Commissioners will be seeking the authority of the EU General Council to sign the EPA.
Signing by the EC and all the participating Cariforum member states must occur before provisional application could be activated.
The CRNM, which negotiated the agreement on behalf of the Cariforum countries, said they have committed themselves to take the necessary steps to complete their internal review processes in a timely manner to facilitate signature and provisional application of the agreement by June 30, 2008. It is expected that the agreement would be signed in Bridgetown, Barbados.
The EPA replaces the trading arrangements in the Cotonou Agreement arrived at between a grouping of African Caribbean Pacific (AFC) countries and the EU in 2000. That trading arrangement expired at the end of December last year.
Cariforum comprises Caricom countries and the Dominican Republic.
