Well over a decade ago the report of the West Indian Commission headed by Sir Shridath Ramphal was presented to the Caricom heads of government. Its most important recommendation, it said clearly, was the establishment of a body to be called the Caricom Commission. This, it said, would be the cornerstone of the structure of unity proposed and central to the architecture of regional integration. The Commission would have a President and two Commissioners appointed by Caricom heads `from among persons with high-level public and political experience in the region’ and with the Secretary – General of Caricom as an ex-officio member. The report proposed a scheme for financing the new Commission and the Secretariat through a formula of automatic transfers of revenue from duties on extra-regional exports. It put forward proposals for enabling the Commission to push the implementation of decisions made by the heads of government or Council of Ministers.
To the disappointment of all committed regionalists who were aware of `the implementation gap’ that had plagued decisions made by the heads of government over the years and had seriously affected the pace of integration this major recommendation was itself not implemented. It was clearly a reflection of a continuing lack of political will and the refusal to recognise that many of these very small countries were barely viable on their own.
A decade later in 2003 the heads of government appointed a Prime Ministerial Expert Group on Governance to make recommendation on the structure of regional governance. Its report was submitted to the heads of government at their meeting in Suriname in February 2005. One of its main recommendations, similar to that of the West Indian Commission, was the establishment of a Caricom Commission “to exercise full time executive responsibility for the implementation of decisions relating to the CSME and any other areas of the integration process” as the heads may determine and to initiate proposals for community action.
Given, they said, the comprehensive nature of some of the recommendations the heads asked the Prime Ministerial Bureau to examine the proposals and submit concrete proposals by July. That was done and at a heads of government meeting in July 2005 it was seen fit to establish a Technical Working Group on the Governance of the Caribbean Community under the distinguished Chairmanship of Professor Vaughan A Lewis. That group interviewed nearly all the heads of government as well as senior officials from the European Commission and presented its final report in October 2006. It broadly accepted the recommendations of the expert group, including the decentralisation of regional decision making so that the sectoral ministerial councils could use their full authority under the revised treaty to effect regional decisions instead of relaying a large number of issues to the Heads of Government, as is done at present, thus making the agenda for their meetings unmanageable. Crucially, it once again endorsed the creation of a Caribbean Community Commission and recommended the expansion of the process of regional decision-making through continuous collaboration between the cabinets of member states, the ministerial organs of the community and the commission. This collaboration, it said, would provide the basis for an effective system of regional decision-making. It proposed the progressive development of community law, already enshrined in the Revised Treaty, as a basis for the operation of the community. This is directed, it noted, at empowering the ministerial organs of the community, in collaboration with the commission to make decisions that would be legally binding on the organs of the community and on member states by virtue of the enactment of a single Caricom Act in their respective parliaments with provisions to ensure the enforcement of such decisions. It also recommended, as the West Indian Commission had done, that the new commission should compromise persons of high political experience. This would be a significant step towards the European model of integration where very senior retired politicians from the various member countries, who by virtue of their status have clout with the current decision makers, have played a major role in the European Commission. An ideal candidate for the role of President of the new commission would, for example, be the former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson who is widely respected throughout the region, though there is no evidence that he is available or willing to undertake the job. The other three members of the new commission would hold portfolios in foreign and community relations, regional and international trade and economic integration, and human and social development.
The stage is set for a major push toward faster and more effective regional integration. Is the political will there and is there a willingness to accept that some limited degree of sovereignty must be conceded in the interest of progress? Given past experience one can at best be cautiously optimistic. The Technical Working Group had urged that given the length of time already spent on the consideration of regional governance a decision be adopted `with a due sense of urgency’. The communiqu
