The European Union and the Commonwealth Caribbean

Book Abstract:

A recent source of tension between the European Union (EU) and the US has arisen over the former's Commodity Protocols. By focusing on those protocols laid down for the Commonwealth Caribbean, especially with respect to those dealing with bananas, rum, and sugar, and by situating these issues in the light of the Lomé and Cotonou Agreements, with the trade concessions and development assistance they provided, this book examines the status of smaller economic organisations in light of developments in international trading and increasing globalisation. Studies into the following states are included within the work: Belize, Guyana, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as the British Dependencies.

Divided into seven chapters, chapter one contains a discussion of the relationship between the Lomé Convention and the Commonwealth, in terms of locating the development of the EU's trade and aid practice in the Commonwealth countries and locating its faultlines. Chapter two deals with the question of European Aid and chapter three, in the light of the so-called 'banana wars' that raged throughout most of the nineties, assesses the implementation of the EU Banana Protocol set up to confront these wars. In chapter four, there is more work on the banana issue, with respect to Caribbean traders in a climate of increasingly international trade, and chapter five looks at the difficult question of sugar. Chapter six devotes itself to the many complexities surrounding the Rum Protocol and chapter seven provides some conclusions.

The book will be useful for students, academics and professionals involved in European studies and development economics

EU: EEAS: Latin America and the Carribean https://eeas.europa.eu/diplomatic-network/latin-america-and-caribbean_en

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