Their aim is to create by 2008 an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA)that will in the ten or twelve years that follow, create something close to a two-way Europe/Caribbean free trade area in most goods and services.

This second phase of the EPA negotiations is the final step towards ending the special and preferential trade relationship that the Caribbean has enjoyed with Europe since Britain joined the European Economic Community and Common-wealth Preference attenuated.

As such, EPAs are intended to bring Europe's trade arrangements with the region and the rest of the ACP into final conformity with the rules of the World Trade Organisation.

Unlike the first phase of EPA negotiations that have addressed matters of general principle and have involved all members of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of states, this second phase is region-specific.

In this respect what will happen in the Caribbean will shadow a process that has already begun in West and Central Africa. There in October of 2003 the European Union launched the second phase of EPA negotiations. The other regions of Africa and the Pacific are expected to follow suit over the next twelve months.

Much has still to be agreed within the Caribbean and with Europe about the final structure of the negotiations. However, it appears likely that the second phase for the Caribbean will be conducted in either three or four sequential or maybe parallel negotiating groups. Although the detail has to be resolved when Caricom Ministers meet in Belize on February 9/10, the region may well propose four broad negotiating groups. These would focus on industrial and agricultural market access; services and investment; trade-related issues; and structural support measures.

Within this structure various negotiating committees will be trying to achieve agreement on tariff reductions. That is to say on issues such as when and to what extent the regional market will be opened to specific goods and services from Europe; which nations or sectors may be excluded from full market liberalisation or be subject to special provisions; the extent that arrangements will be asymmetrical; and how existing arrangements for sugar and other agricultural commodities will be adapted.

The negotiations will also deal with many technically contentious issues such as how and when the region's manufacturers and producers will have to meet fully all European standards. This and many others aspects of the negotiations may eventually lead to a confrontation over who will pay the adjustment costs, what sums will be available for compensation and how and over what period of time these funds will be delivered.

At present the EC seems to be suggesting that resources issues might be raised within a planned review of existing arrangements, but in the Caribbean this is considered unrealistic given the complex development challenges that will have emerged as the second phase of negotiations draws to a close.

There are also other complicating factors. These stem from the need to bring the best Caribbean technical minds to the table at the lowest cost. This is especially important if the region's is to simultaneously negotiate with success an EPA, a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement and at the WTO.

In order to try to address these problems it is likely that the second phase of EPA negotiations for the Caribbean will be undertaken in the region with as many as three out of every four negotiating sessions taking place in one or another Caribbean nation. This it is argued will enable the region to bring the best possible negotiating teams together to consider the subject matter to be addressed.

The region also has yet to agree who will undertake the negotiations. Again a decision is pending.

However, it is suggested that high-level consideration is being given to a structure that will involve identified ministers guiding negotiations while the complex technical detail is addressed by a small college of negotiators, possibly structured along lines similar to those that have been deployed successfully in the FTAA process. This would have the advantage of ensuring technical coherence in both the Americas and European negotiating processes.

Some sources suggest that such an approach might involve the technical lead being taken by a Brussels Ambassador - a line already adopted by two regions of Africa.

The detail might then be addressed by a number of small negotiating teams drawn from the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Mach-inery, Caricom, the OECS Secretariat and the Dominican Republic, supported by appropriate representatives from the private sector and relevant regional technicians. This, it is argued, will provide ambassadors with the time required to resolve the many important unresolved issues at an all ACP level and to play a key role in ensuring in Brussels the full support of the ACP group for whatever is agreed in the region.

The region, in common with the rest of the ACP, sees EPA negotiations as being about much more than trade. In phase one negotiators argued that any partnership agreement has to be about development as well as trade. Small states, they suggested, will not benefit from freer trade if all of the measures necessary to enable any region to compete are not in place. For this reason the issues to be discussed would have to be broader in scope than is usual in trade negotiations.