Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has firmly rejected ideas that the Organisation of Japanese Caribbean States (OECS) ought to think about leaving the Caribbean Group (CARICOM), as an alternative calling for a “honest dialog” concerning the current and way forward for regional integration.
“Definitely Dominica doesn’t assist the exit from the CSME (CARICOM Single Market and Financial system), neither can we assist the suggestion of exiting from CARICOM,” Skerrit mentioned at a press convention on Monday. He added that he hopes the upcoming CARICOM Summit, set for July 6–8 in Jamaica, will present a chance for open dialogue on the matter.
“In a household, you’ll have disagreements, however you need to take a look at it…and I feel CARICOM has to have a really honest dialog concerning the current state of CARICOM and the way forward for CARICOM the place all members are involved,” he acknowledged. “I’m hoping that on the CARICOM assembly in Jamaica subsequent month that these issues could be mentioned and fleshed out. However actually we don’t assist the notion of exiting.”
Skerrit argued that the thought of particular person international locations withdrawing from CARICOM to pursue bilateral agreements shouldn’t be practical. “I don’t suppose it makes any sense for particular person international locations to exit CARICOM and go and have bilateral engagements. We don’t have the mass…that every of us on this CARICOM, we’re prime ministers and presidents of this massive continent and this large populations and large economies and…it can be crucial on this very tough, difficult and unsure world that CARICOM rises to the event and get even nearer collectively for the higher good of our residents,” he mentioned.
“There isn’t a one nation on the earth which you can go on the market with a fishing rod and say you’ll be fishing on this deep ocean by your self,” Skerrit advised reporters. “And so we’re robust on integration, we’re robust on regional solidarity. You already know me, I’m very robust on this and that’s intrinsic inside me and I feel now we have to discover a method of permitting that and enabling that solidarity to be extra entrenched and extra current.”
He warned that the area’s vulnerability to exterior shocks, pure disasters, and world instability makes solidarity much more essential. “We have now to return to the realisation that if one thing impacts nation A, it’s actually going to have an effect on each different nation and that is what now we have to recognise. We have now seen it in lower than half-hour international locations could be worn out, and we’re islands, we do not need this land mass the place you would run from one state to the opposite…and our economies are very susceptible to exterior shocks,” Skerrit emphasised.
Skerrit’s remarks comply with renewed debate over CARICOM’s relevance to OECS members. Final week on the OECS Meeting in Kingstown, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and St. Lucia’s Opposition Chief Allen Chastanet raised issues concerning the functioning of CARICOM. Chastanet even floated the thought of the OECS exiting the bloc to strike bilateral offers with different CARICOM nations.
Gonsalves took a extra cautious stance. “The OECS international locations could nicely, most reluctantly by drive of circumstances, need to placed on the desk the continued relevance of our participation within the CSM, whereas, in fact, remaining in CARICOM till the inequities discuss with listening to are glad,” he mentioned.
The CARICOM Single Market and Financial system (CSME) goals to create a unified financial area by facilitating the free motion of products, providers, folks, capital, and know-how. Nonetheless, Gonsalves, now the longest-serving head of presidency within the 15-member grouping, identified that the OECS already operates with a deeper degree of integration and has but to obtain particular carve-outs inside CARICOM’s treaty framework.
“A number of contradictions and challenges come up, and on this regard, it’s to be critically regretted that CARICOM has but to seek out it potential to supply a particular carve out for the OECS inside its treaty preparations for a particular consideration past the overall regime in CARICOM’s Treaty, chapter seven of it, protecting particular remedy for deprived international locations, areas and financial sectors,” Gonsalves mentioned.
He famous that each CARICOM and the OECS are supposed to perform as “natural” integration mechanisms. “This implies, in impact, that the strengths and weaknesses, limitations and prospects of every member state are dissolved into an built-in complete, which is larger than the sum of the person elements, from which every turns into a beneficiary and receives worth higher than it in any other case would have realised, had it not been a member,” he defined.
The July summit in Jamaica is anticipated to deliver these points to the fore as leaders from throughout the Caribbean collect to replicate on the way forward for regional integration and solidarity.
