Three decades after CARICOM pact Single Market going nowhere fast

Antiguan Prime Minister Gaston Browne

Few if any issues symbolise the failure of the integrationist intent of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) than its failure, over more than three decades, to realise the implementation of its hoped-for Single Market and Economy (CSME), and at the end of yet another meeting of CARICOM Heads… a virtual one, this time around, in the light of the still rampaging coronavirus, the regional movement’s new Chairman, Antigua’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne said that regional Heads have agreed to have yet another tilt at the elusive goal.

It is not unlikely that the announcement may have taken the citizenry of member countries completely by surprise, with so little faith, it seems, remaining in the hope that the CARICOM collective will one day strut its collective stuff by demonstrating its economic acumen to the world as a whole.