As the Caribbean Community’s main conference, the annual Conference of Heads of Government, has come and gone this month, there have been a variety of expressions of concern that the heads have not done enough to keep our integration process on track. There has been disappointment that they have not given a clear indication following certain concerns expressed by Jamaica some time ago, about the relevance of pursuing a single economy, that no clear indication has been given of a determination to proceed with the nitty gritty of the proposal made by a team led by Professor Norman Girvan over two years ago. A general perception of the heads’ orientation to this study would appear to be that it must await further discussion after the heads have pursued their current preoccupation with the global economic crisis and its effect on national economies.
Similarly there has been much criticism, particularly among the informed journalistic fraternity, that no progress has been made on the issue of strengthening the governance arrangements – decision-making and implementation of decisions – long recommended by the Ramphal-chaired West Indian Com-mission; and that it is hard for the outside observer to see, from the short statement in the heads’ communiqué, that much discussion was devoted to the issue. The issue now lies in the hands of current Caricom Chairman President Jagdeo, amidst his other pressing preoccupations.
Thirdly, after the public disputations among national leaders over the freedom of movement issue, and actions taken particularly in Barbados and Antigua, the heads seemed anxious to find some way of indicating to the public that there has been some meeting of minds on this issue. Yet it does not seem that an appropriate regional mechanism with sufficient authority particularly to ensure the timely availability of information to all countries, has been established to maintain some surveillance of the ways in which policies on movement and integration will be pursued by the separate national governments – especially as they are prone to claim that action in this arena is essentially a national prerogative.
Heads of government are undoubtedly concerned to give priority to the economic crisis which has affected some countries more than others. But the public has not really been informed as to the extent to which governments have decided what, in the current downturn, is due to the present global crisis, and what, in the depressing statistics recording unsteady performance of productive sectors in some countries, is due to a kind of secular decline, resulting from growing uncompetitiveness for whatever reason. For example the signs are that with oil prices on the rise, though an unsteady rise, again, the Government of Trinidad will feel more confident about recovery, even while it notes that natural gas prices have not really risen similarly, and that demand for natural gas-derived products in the metropolitan countries is still uncertain. In terms of budgetary stability though, that government will be feeling more secure.
On the other hand, and in spite of the complaints of regional slowness in permitting the entry of certain Jamaican products, as illustrated in the trade in the Jamaican patties controversy, few are convinced that the global crisis is pre-eminently responsible for the topor of the Jamaican economy. With the one-time major motor of that economy – bauxite and alumina exports – in a downward spiral, as are both sugar and bananas also, increasing sentiment in Jamaica itself is that, with the possible exception of tourism, Jamaican economic policy has not, over the last twenty years or so, been exercised with sufficient competence to match changing trends in the global economy.
Surprisingly to many, it is the OECS countries, some of them also facing secular decline in banana exports, and with their tourism under threat, which seem to have responded to the crisis with a sense of the necessity for a degree of sub-regional collective decision-making. Their response to the CLICO and Stanford crises with their severe implications for the savings of the citizens of the OECS has largely been one emphasizing regional technical preparation and regional government determination of decisions. This approach has evidently been due to the existence of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, and the pro-active leadership which that institution has displayed in marshalling evidence, establishing contacts with relevant regional and international financial institutions, and in insisting that the OECS governments, in the approach to other countries of the region (Trinidad and Barbados in particular), should come to the table showing a clear orientation to be pursued, albeit with the help of those other governments.
The OECS/ECCU’s approach has indicated something that other countries can perhaps take note of. This is that the issue of the collective exercise of the sovereignty of countries by their governments, when taken in conjunction with an understanding that decisions particularly in the spheres of monetary and financial policy require a context of a clear legal commitment to follow through with timely implementation, does not involve any subordination of countries’ sovereignty. Another current decision, not publicly overt, but obviously taken in recent times by the OECS/ECCB combination, is a further illustration of this approach. This is a joint decision on the part of OECS governments, to take a unified approach to the matter of assistance from the Inter-national Monetary Fund in their present economic predicaments.
Jamaica Prime Minister Golding’s preoccupation that the cooperation necessary to implement the Caricom Single Economy could curtail or diminish the sovereignty of his country, does not seem to be an issue for the smaller sub-grouping of countries in Caricom (though some might cynically say that they are too small to worry about sovereignty). And the obvious determination of the OECS governments to seek to find a form of governance for the proposed Economic Union, as indicated in the Draft Treaty now being circulated by the OECS Secretariat, suggests too, that the issue of collective governance is not seen as implying an infraction on sovereignty, as the Jamaican, and perhaps some other countries’ concerns might suggest. The suggestion would appear to be that no useful purpose will be served by discussing the issue of the use of sovereignty in the abstract – in which connection it seems fair to say that our Caricom heads of government have given us no public indication over the years that they have discussed in depth, among themselves, the mechanics of the Ramphal recommendations and those of subsequent reports.
Many of the issues posed over the years to heads of government on collective governance and its relationship to sovereignty, have long been debated in another sphere – the European communities and now the European Union. The extensive debate over the proposed, and then defeated, European Constitution, and then the succeeding efforts to get approval of the proposed Lisbon Treaty, indicated a sense of persistence and perseverance about their integration process, that we in this region need to look at. It is not enough to say, as some often suggest, that our two cases are too different from each other, to permit the learning of some lessons from the European experience.
We shall return to this issue.
