PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – Dr. Patrick I Gomes, secretary general of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group, says it will be in the Caribbean community (CARICOM) countries favor to quickly negotiate new trade agreements with the United Kingdom as it moves to leave the European Union.
The U.K. is due to leave the European Union on Oct. 31 with or without any Brexit deal and Gomes told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) he believes the Caribbean would need to have relations with both U.K. and wider Europe in the post-Brexit era. The relationship with Europe, he added, whether it is one without the U.K., will still be important in terms of “our political ties and also our combination of resources in the international arena like in climate change overall.
“But also in terms of investment and access to technology. But also there will be a substantial amount of development finance to continue under new terms of course and we know these terms will be important.”
LINK
“But along with the U.K. there will be of course a link of the Caribbean and U.K. post-Brexit,” Gomes explained, “and we are putting on the table there should be no less than the duty free quota free provided now by our access to the European Union as a whole.”
He said the work is being prepared and that “the benefit of that work is also seeing how we prepare the Caribbean pillar, which in the post Cotonou Agreement with Europe would see certain areas that we would also want to address in dealing with the Caribbean-U.K. alone.
“So rather than the EU-Caribbean as a pillar, you will have the Caribbean-U.K.”
He said with Brexit and the termination of the contribution of development finance from the U.K. to the European pool as a whole, “we will have to negotiate as part of a relationship between the CARICOM and the U.K.-post Brexit, how we will have trade, how we will link with development finance and what will be the other conditions.”
Guyanese-born Gomes said that the roll-over of the trade agreement is already being considered through CARICOM “so that duty free, quota free and all the phytosanitary regulations that are applicable in Europe will not be punitive on the Caribbean, but will be along the same lines.”
