Progress on Regional Integration

24.MAY.11

All too often, when Caribbean people comment on the issue of regional integration, what comes to the fore is the frustration over the slow pace of progress in achieving this long-held dream of our people. This is understandable, for, despite the many Declarations and pronouncements over the years, we have failed to keep in line with timetables set and deadlines agreed upon by our respective governments.{{more}} The frustration is exemplified by the wide range of songs, jokes, parodies and the like which have CARICOM and regional integration as their base.

Yet, there has been some advancement; not as much as we may have wished, but certainly in some respects. One such example is that of the smaller islands of the Eastern Caribbean. Long considered almost as “second-class” citizens within the wider community, these islands have been able to utilize their commonalities and lack of size to forge significant agreements on a range of issues, which have not only enabled these mini-states to better survive in a world where size matters, but which can serve as stimuli for wider regional integration efforts.

Last week, the Heads of Government of the nine-nation Organisation of the Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) met in Kingstown to deal with matters relating to their agreement to deepen their level of cooperation to encompass an Economic Union among themselves. Having set up the OECS under the Treaty of Basseterre (1981) and instituting very practical mechanisms to underpin this cooperation (common currency, single judiciary, joint procurement of drugs), the realities of survival in a hostile world have dictated even deeper levels of integration between them. The Economic Union is one such giant step, a prelude, if successful, to a Political Union stretching from the still colonial-type territories of the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Montserrat, right down the island-chain through St. Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda, to the four Windward Islands.

Of particular significance, especially given the Caribbean experience, is the commitment to freedom of movement of citizens within the Economic Union. The parliament of St. Vincent and the Grenadines is today, May 24, expected to vote to make the revised Treaty of Basseterre a part of national law. When enacted, and subject to similar enactment in the independent OECS countries, not only will OECS citizens have the right to hassle-free travel between these states, but there will no longer be a need for work permits for such citizens. A carpenter from Dominica can thus travel to Grenada and engage in employment there without bureaucratic hassle, while a Vincentian mason can go to Antigua and ply his trade there without restriction.

This is a most significant development, with implications for the wider Caribbean Community. It is an issue on which our hopes and dreams have long floundered, and which has been exploited by narrow-minded politicians to suit their selfish interests. In the modern world, those so-called “nationalist” aspirations are becoming rapidly outmoded as countries, much better endowed than ours, move to cement themselves into wider trading blocs. A maid from Poland can now be gainfully employed at the Savoy Hotel in London, just as a Portuguese mine-maker can put his skills to use in France, all being part of the European Union. Yet, in the relatively tiny Caribbean, we are still talking of “Barbadian jobs”, “Trinidad manufacturers” and “Jamaican workers”. How anachronistic!

We still have a long way to go along the regional integration route, but we must safeguard every step along the way and celebrate every forward movement.