Cracks in CARICOM
Source: Freeport News
Published: Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was convened during the first week of July in Antigua and Barbuda and the discussion on the European Partnership Agreement (EPA), among other items, gave some indication of the growing discord in the CARICOM integration movement.
Guyana, which claimed it had the most to lose if the current EPA deal was sealed without amendment, remained stubborn throughout the meeting.
It argued that the EPA would give Europe a favoured trading partner status that could adversely affect trade agreements with other parts of the world; a position not dissimilar to sentiments expressed locally in The Bahamas on the proposed agreement.
They also argued that the discriminating preferential trade agreements offered by the European Union were incompatible with the World Trade Organization's (WTO) rules and they therefore urged the Community to consider a renegotiation of the deal.
On the matters of the freedom of movement and the single market, there still appears to be wide differences. Complaints about the humiliating treatment of CARICOM nationals by immigration authorities in some countries were lodged and the question was raised as to whether the hassle-free travel envisioned in the revised treaty of Chaguramas would ever materialize.
Some countries revealed that they do not yet have the national capacity to implement all the requirements of the single market and economy, particularly at this time when the region is facing, perhaps, some of its greatest challenges inclusive of escalating food and energy prices.
The CARICOM Treaty requires each member state to take the necessary constitutional and legislative steps to enable the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as the final Court of Appeal for the Community; many states have not done so yet nor are there any visible efforts on their part to do so in the near future.
Indeed, it was observed that none of the members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Dominica, St. Kitts, et al) have yet committed to the process. Indeed, most of these sovereign states have in fact signed on to the Bolivian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), which is the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez's creation as the regional trading arrangement to replace, or in his words, to destroy, the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA) process which was developed by the Americans on former President Clinton's watch.
ALBA, which has a substantial economic aid component, is regarded by some Caribbean countries as a historic watershed in the relations between Latin America and the Caribbean; others are much more cynical and feel that the effort would be better spent in forging stronger ties within the region.
Although Venezuela is in favour of higher oil prices as a way of punishing the United States, it has provided through Petrocaribe, an oil-price support program, the means by which some Caribbean states could obtain relief.
Those states, by the way, are also taking full advantage of the Petroleum Development Fund which was established by sister Caribbean nation, Trinidad and Tobago, for virtually the same purpose.
While the Caribbean integration movement is by no means at a standstill, the cracks in the ambitious wall of the single market and economy appear to be widening over time as opposed to narrowing with maturity, as was the case with the European Union, the organization upon which it was modelled.
One head of state at the meeting summed it up rather eloquently by blaming "the politics of limited regional engagement in Jamaica...; the politics of ethnicity in Trinidad and Guyana...; separation among large sections of the Barbadian populace...; and, the CULTIVATED ALOOFNESS FROM THE REGIONAL ENTERPRISE BY THE BAHAMAS.
