(GEORGETOWN) - Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders are likely to hold an emergency summit to discuss the refusal by several members led by Guyana to sign the Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, Caricom Secretary General Edwin Carrington said Thursday.

Carrington confirmed that on Wednesday Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson wrote Caricom Chairman Baldwin Spencer, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, requesting a meeting to discuss opposition to the EPA, which was scheduled to be signed on September 2.

Guyana, Grenada and St Lucia have said they would delay signing the EPA, a successor accord to the Cotonou Agreement between Europe and its former colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and Pacific.

Carrington said that no date has been fixed for the special meeting, but most likely it would be held in Barbados.

"I would expect that the heads (of government) would respond positively," he told AFP, welcoming efforts to hold this special summit.

Guyana was the first Caricom member to say that it would not sign the EPA, saying that under it the EU threatens to impose higher tariffs on vital Guyanese exports like rice, rum and sugar.

This would result in a loss of billions of dollars in revenue and unfair trading advantage in the area of services, Guyana maintains.

"There is very little that we can send into Europe and this will negatively affect our balance of trade and our balance of payment," said Guyana President Bharrat Jagdeo.

Jagdeo contends that the EPA would undermine the two-year old Caricom Single Market because the region would be obliged to give priority to implementing the EPA.

The Guyanese leader further argues that the EPA has altered Caricom's foreign trade policy by compelling the region to offer similar trade agreements to the United States and Canada, and to give the EU the same treatment given to the large developing countries of India, China and Brazil.

"We have determined our foreign trade policy already for maybe decades to come by this agreement," Jagdeo said, saying it leaves Caricom members and leaders little flexibility on foreign trade policy.

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