BY RONALD SANDERS
(The writer is the Ambassador of Antigua and Barbuda to the United States and the OAS. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and Massey College at the University of Toronto. The views expressed are entirely his own)
So far, in this attempt to answer the question, “Has CARICOM reached its limits of regional integration”, it has been proven that, after almost 50 years, the regional project has failed to fulfill the commitments expected from the Treaty of Chaguaramas of 1973 and his. Revision in 2001.
In summary, while the 2001 revision of the CARICOM Treaty established the framework for a single economic space (the Caribbean Common Market and Economy (CSME), regional integration efforts have made very little progress. Not even a customs union, let alone a Common Market is created.
The ‘sovereignty’ of individual states continues to be a dominant feature of decision-making, resulting in inadequate or absent implementation of regional decisions. The Secretariat, after a brilliant start under the leadership of William Demas and Alister McIntyre (two widely respected Caribbean figures), and with enthusiastic support from the then member governments, has devolved into paralysis and bureaucratic management, in addition to poor funding.
Furthermore, CARICOM expanded prematurely instead of focusing on deepening its integration. The accession of Haiti in 2002 has caused problems for trade and economic integration – a problem that is unlikely to be resolved in the foreseeable future. Further, successive Haitian governments have violated the 1997 CARICOM Civil Society Charter regarding free and fair elections, good governance, and civil and political rights. The Bahamas is not a member of aspects of the CARICOM common market. While it has usefully participated in some aspects of “functional cooperation”, its governments have been inconsistent in coordinating foreign policy with other CARICOM states.
Jamaica has repeatedly questioned the benefits of its participation in CARICOM, focusing issues only on its trade with Trinidad and Tobago and ignoring the fact that it enjoys a large trade surplus with all other CARICOM states, especially those that are also members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS). Also, depending on which political party holds office, Jamaica’s governments have chosen to do very little coordination of its foreign policy positions.
The 2017 Jamaica Commission, chaired by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, which reviewed Jamaica’s relationship with CARICOM, recommended that, unless substantial changes were made to CARICOM processes, Jamaica should “withdraw from CSME” but maintain membership “similar to that of the Bahamas”. The latter event would place Jamaica in the same semi-detached position as the Bahamas, further weakening the Organization. However, it should be noted that in the Golding Report there were many remarks and remarks of valuable for the reform of CARICOM, especially for the implementation of its decisions.
In 2003, fourteen years before Golding’s report, another Jamaican prime minister, PJ Patterson, a committed regionalist, proposed to a meeting of CARICOM heads of government a mechanism to facilitate deepening regional integration. Seemingly convinced, the leaders adopted the “Rose Hall Declaration.” Even then, however, there were signs of reluctance and reluctance with a Prime Minister insisting on accepting Rose Hall’s statement “in principle”, not in practice. The statement was never executed.
This led Sir Shridath Ramphal, the Caribbean statesman who chaired the 1992 West Indies Commission, to observe, in 2014, that nothing came of the Declaration because it offered “a regionalism which, with all the checks and balances his anti-supranationalism, was still too much for the closed immaturity of a political culture obsessed with the obsessive compulsions of local control”. Sir Shridath also noted with poignant resonance today that if regional leaders had implemented the mechanism proposed by PJ Patterson, “many of our countries would not be experiencing the extent of the terrible economic disaster and insecurity they are now enduring”.
Realistically, the challenges facing the CARICOM countries, including Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Suriname with their current oil and gas wealth, is that none of them, individually, enjoy sustainable economic independence. Each of them is dependent on assistance for social and economic development and security in all its dimensions. Consequently, this dependence deprives each of them of genuine political independence. As the late prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Lester Bird, said in 1992, “No small country, severely limited in its natural, human and financial resources, can function as if it were a large country. [-] It is an unrealistic approach to problem-solving and decision-making in a world that has embraced economic alliances, mergers and the creation of single regional markets as a way to survive.”
Based on all this, CARICOM has not reached the limits of regional integration; indeed, CARICOM has barely scratched the surface of the economic and political benefits of integration.
The region’s current leaders must navigate their countries through the maelstrom of high debt, persistently poor terms of trade, inadequate access to concessional financing for development, high imported food and energy costs, inadequate technological infrastructure, and the impact of Climate Change. While some of them, especially oil and gas, may weather this storm for now, the underlying weaknesses of small individual economies will persist. A committed approach to deepening regional integration with effective machinery for implementation is the only answer.
Accession to a “Community of Sovereign Caribbean States” is unlikely to change. But its leaders must at least recognize that “sovereignty” is useful only if there is strength in relations with an international community. Many of the member states of the international community are fed up with the constant demands for their taxpayers’ money by small and weak individual states. They themselves have pursued integration as their salvation, such as in the European Union, the United States of America, the Canadian Federation, the Mexican Federation, and the Brazilian Federation.
While Federation is now a very fearful contemplation, at the very least deeper integration should be high on leaders’ priorities and commitment as CARICOM’s 60th anniversary approaches. Leaders may usefully consider adapting one of the Golding Commission’s recommendations, “to appoint an oversight body of three to five prominent CARICOM nationals to review the performance of CARICOM and, in particular, the compliance of member states…” . The review may be considered in July 2023 and submitted to the public. There is no shortage of solid, authoritative work that would aid the review.
As Dr Eric Williams, a renowned Caribbean historian who led his country, Trinidad and Tobago, to independence after the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, advised with an imposing conscience in 1962: “Partition and fragmentation were the policy of colonialism and rival colonialism. Association and integration should be the policy of independence”.
Previous Answers and Comments:
www.sirronaldsanders.com
