Between the host prime minister’s opening speech and the final communiqué of last week’s Caricom summit, there was, as feared in many quarters, a distinct lack of comfort with regard to concrete action to reinvigorate our faltering regional integration project.
Certainly, there were many fine words uttered. Most Caribbean leaders can be as eloquent as West Indies pacer Tino Best can be enthusiastic, and they were just as liberal in their use of rhetoric as the fast bowler was profligate in his delivery of wide balls against Sri Lanka earlier this week. But the language of the communiqué was as uninspiring as ever, perhaps understandably so, since there were no breakthrough decisions to broadcast.
To be honest, there were no huge pre-meeting expectations. Yet, even in the most sceptical of breasts there must have beaten a slight hope that the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas might provoke a moment of epiphany – that the gradualist, not to say fainthearted, approach would be discarded in favour of bold, decisive and urgent action.
Instead, in the face of “the worst economic and financial crisis of this century,” as stated in the communiqué, the best that the release could muster was that our leaders “agreed to deepen the regional framework for growth and development through the pursuit of a development strategy which engenders inclusiveness of all stakeholders and which would lift the knowledge base, innovation capability, and entrepreneurial capacity of Caricom Nationals to engage in competitive, higher value-added economic activities.”
As to how they intend to achieve this beyond the verbiage and giving “immediate consideration” to the “design and execution of a resource mobilization strategy” (read “begging”) and the “adoption of a stabilization and growth agenda which emphasizes the removal of constraints on competitive production as well as proactive facilitation and support for the private sector aimed at catalyzing growth in critical economic sectors,” (read “passing the buck”), without addressing the overdue implementation of the Single Market and Economy (CSME) remains to be seen.
Astonishingly and most tellingly, the CSME only merited a passing reference and this in the context of the lead responsibility of the Barbados prime minister. The inference can therefore only be drawn that there is no serious intent to move forward with the deepening of Caricom integration.
Neither was there any mention of specific initiatives to resolve outstanding, burning issues such as the Trinidad and Tobago fuel subsidy to Caribbean Airlines; not even a reference to the proposal by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar in her inaugural address of “a ministerial meeting to discuss issues with respect to Liat and Caribbean Airlines as part of the rationalisation of regional transportation,” although it appears that the Bureau of Heads of Government has been charged, strangely, with looking into how to achieve “better co-ordination among airlines in the Region with a view to providing a better service.”
Indeed, there were no details in the communiqué to dispel the impression that it was nothing more than another exercise in verbose circumlocution and that the heads themselves talked and talked but agreed on nothing of substance.
Perhaps a clue to the lack of purpose lies in Mrs Persad-Bissessar’s opening remarks in which she stated that there was “a view that Caricom, as it was originally envisioned, has reached its political, socio-economic and ideological limits” and recommended consideration of expanding the Community’s membership to include the Dominican Republic and the Dutch and French Caribbean islands.
It would be interesting to know if the other heads agreed with her, but we can only shake our heads sadly at the idea, put forward by the prime minister of the Community’s most dominant economy, that Caricom, still young and unfulfilled at 40, may have reached its limits.
How can the regional integration movement have reached its limits when its leaders have failed so glaringly to implement the key recommendations emanating from its people, in the region and in the diaspora, as recorded in the 1992 Report of the West Indian Commission? How can Caricom have reached its limits if the CSME has not been fully established and given a fair chance of success? How can the Community contemplate dramatic expansion when it does not have its own house in order? In other words, how can Caricom build a higher integration edifice when its foundations are so weak?
Mrs Persad-Bissessar may have simply been flying a kite but her startling suggestion is an unwanted distraction from the real business of deepening Caricom integration. If, however, it is a reflection of the dominant thinking within her government, then it is itself a limiting perspective that bodes ill for the regional integration process.
