Alien
04-28-08, - 04:10 PM
What happened to all of the bluster, which some folks opposed to the EPA, vesicated on the public arena?
It has quietted down to a murmur. Not even as sotto voce. Certainly on the level of being susurrus at best. LOL.......
However, June is the date for the services agreement with the Bahamas and Haiti. And, I wish the people, discussing this issue in the open forum, bifurcate the two agreements in the EPA. 1. Goods and the other one 2. Services and Investments.
The goods agreement has been signed- or has all intentions of singing before June. Initialed with little or no input, from all parties back in December- except for private information on trends and flows, presented to the government from the fisheries, polymers and rum industries respectively. Trends and flows "projected" and not evidenced as growth manifesting- near or distant future. With this, EPA is CSME x 50, if we count all of the Caribbean, European, African and Pacific States. Do you remember any open debate on this, as we had with the CSME?
Still, no break down as to which goods, will be phased in in 2008 and 2010 and so forth. All we have is 25% will be liberalized in 2008 and another percentage, in 2010 and so on and so forth. And, do we really want to talk about national food security in this country, when the EPA was agriculturally based?
We need more than that. For example, let the chicken farmers, know which chicken parts will be liberalized; who are the main producers in the chicken industry out of the group of African/EU/Caricom/Pacific state partners. As such with all of the other goods and products.
Secondly, if we have any wriggling power, we have to "revise" the clause that states that we should leave ourselves open, to this agreement, to the whims of an arbitrary panel, with no defined commitments on any standards to be met, and that arbitrary panel, being made up of persons who are essentially our competition; certainly in regards to services!
Lastly, while I am not protectionist at all, and in fact, I am quite the opposite. We have to commit to a bi-lateral and countrywide trade plan, that is comprehensive as well as full marginal beneficial. ALL IN and all encompassing!
Open and honest government is what we want. We wont know what to expect, what to prepare for and what to benefit from, if we are kept in the dark. Private companies can keep business deals secret. But, the government, responsible for providing economic security, has not the moral right to deal in such a clandestine manner!
We have to call that one out...
It has quietted down to a murmur. Not even as sotto voce. Certainly on the level of being susurrus at best. LOL.......
However, June is the date for the services agreement with the Bahamas and Haiti. And, I wish the people, discussing this issue in the open forum, bifurcate the two agreements in the EPA. 1. Goods and the other one 2. Services and Investments.
The goods agreement has been signed- or has all intentions of singing before June. Initialed with little or no input, from all parties back in December- except for private information on trends and flows, presented to the government from the fisheries, polymers and rum industries respectively. Trends and flows "projected" and not evidenced as growth manifesting- near or distant future. With this, EPA is CSME x 50, if we count all of the Caribbean, European, African and Pacific States. Do you remember any open debate on this, as we had with the CSME?
Still, no break down as to which goods, will be phased in in 2008 and 2010 and so forth. All we have is 25% will be liberalized in 2008 and another percentage, in 2010 and so on and so forth. And, do we really want to talk about national food security in this country, when the EPA was agriculturally based?
We need more than that. For example, let the chicken farmers, know which chicken parts will be liberalized; who are the main producers in the chicken industry out of the group of African/EU/Caricom/Pacific state partners. As such with all of the other goods and products.
Secondly, if we have any wriggling power, we have to "revise" the clause that states that we should leave ourselves open, to this agreement, to the whims of an arbitrary panel, with no defined commitments on any standards to be met, and that arbitrary panel, being made up of persons who are essentially our competition; certainly in regards to services!
Lastly, while I am not protectionist at all, and in fact, I am quite the opposite. We have to commit to a bi-lateral and countrywide trade plan, that is comprehensive as well as full marginal beneficial. ALL IN and all encompassing!
Open and honest government is what we want. We wont know what to expect, what to prepare for and what to benefit from, if we are kept in the dark. Private companies can keep business deals secret. But, the government, responsible for providing economic security, has not the moral right to deal in such a clandestine manner!
We have to call that one out...