The well attended Third UK/Caribbean Ministerial Forum which met here in Georgetown two weeks ago duly issued its communiqué. Conference communiques are substantially written long before the conference is held. The careful communiqué language records achievements but it often papers over sharp disagreements. In this case a revelation as to a lack of common positions on some issues which dogged the forum has come from an unexpected quarter. Barbados Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Billie Miller in opening a conference in Barbados of Caricom Ministerial spokespersons on the 7th April, 2002 to deal with upcoming international negotiations, is reported by the Barbados Nation to have said that consistency among Caricom States was critical so as to avoid the repetition, in Guyana, of ministers taking opposing positions, even after a Caricom caucus, in front of negotiating partners who relished such cracks. "We have to be as one and move forward always as one," she added. "If one speaks, it has to be an understanding that one voice of the Caribbean speaks for the entire Caribbean, whether it is in the FTAA process, ACP-EU (African, Caribbean and Pacific states-European Union), WTO (World Trade Organisation) or right here in our own Caribbean Basin".

Further information which has come to hand suggests the lack of common positions might have derived from a lack of preparation, the lack of carefully prepared analysis that could attract consensus leading to common positions on issues.

Caribbean Ministers at the forum have attached the highest importance to one particular outcome of the forum process which is not explicitly dealt with in the communiqué namely the agreement on mechanisms which would ensure regular consultations with the UK government. On the TV programme "One to One" these mechanisms were outlined by Sir Ronald Sanders as follows: Caribbean High Commissioners and senior officials will meet with appropriate UK officials to discuss current issues which affect the region and on which they would seek UK support. In those fora where they could not be represented they would look to the UK to assist with the representation of their interests. At a higher level Foreign Ministers would meet with the UK Foreign Minister once a year and Heads of Government would meet with the UK Prime Minister once every two years. Sanders was a member of the Ministerial Committee which studied the deepening of the relationship.

It was claimed that this institutional relationship with the UK would be unique, with no similar relationship existing with any other region of the world. All to the good, but how will it work. Will Caricom say to the UK: "Big daddy, we cannot be present at such and such a conference but you will be there. See how you can help us out". This may sound facetious but the Caricom side could easily slip into that situation as regional external representation, as it now exists, is not consistently characterised by preparation and coordination.

Caricom will be required, if the deeper relationship with the UK is to be effective, to prepare documentation which reflects not only the common interests of Caricom member states but takes due account as well of UK interests as it pursues its own complex global foreign policy. The UK cannot be expected to support or represent interests hostile to its own.

In about five weeks from today Caricom will participate in another similar summit in Madrid, this time with the Spanish government. It will be the second such summit and will precede, on the 16th May, the second European Union - Latin America Caribbean summit on 18th May. Spain's relationship with Spanish speaking Latin America is similar to the relationship between the UK and Caricom - a matter of shared language, institutions and culture. Latin America's uneasiness, to put it mildly, with the "black" Caribbean is well known. As Caricom turns south to build relationships with the Latin States what will Caricom say to Spain?

Far more serious, what is the state of preparedness of the region for the bread and butter, life and death negotiations in the three areas of negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) the negotiations with the EU about to resume in September and the Doha work programme of the WTO. As agreed by Heads of Government, ministerial spokesmen have been assigned for each of the areas. Guyana's Minister for Foreign Trade is the spokesman for the WTO negotiations, somewhat surprisingly as Guyana has no mission in Geneva at the WTO.

At the meeting mentioned above in Barbados of such Ministerial spokespersons to review the state of preparedness for these upcoming negotiations Foreign Minister Billie Miller had said: "None among us say we are ready". The situation she described is profoundly disturbing:

(1) On the FTAA

"Priority attention needs to be given to undertaking urgent technical work in order to develop Caricom negotiating guidelines...."

(2) ACP-EU negotiations for New Trading Arrangements

"The ACP are yet to decide on their approach to the negotiations, that is as a single entity, as separate regions or even in some combination of the two..... Impact Assessments and other studies for the Caribbean, at least, are not yet underway."

(3) On the WTO work programme

"For the Caribbean, a most important issue is the development of a work progamme for 'smaller economies' with the WTO".

The Barbados Foreign Minister concluded her opening remarks by stating that the meeting looked to the Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) to provide the lead and for the Caricom/Cariforum and OECD secretariat to work in collaboration.

From this distance one gets the impression that the RNM is no longer as much on the ball as it was under Sir Shridath Ramphal. In any event it is clearly long overdue for the region to go beyond the RNM, to constitute and reorganise its considerable intellectual resources to meet with a creative response the profound challenge of an increasingly hostile or indifferent environment.

In this connection it should be remarked how little attention was given to external relations by the major reports on the future of Caricom, notably the so-called Wise Men's report at the beginning of the eighties or even Ramphal's own West Indian Commission's report.

Caricom's mechanism for the coordination of foreign policy was modelled by the late, great, William Demas on the similar provisions in the EU which are described there as European Political Cooperation (EPC). A study of the EPC may therefore be instructive. Simplyfing (indeed oversimplifying) the history of EPC it was soon clear that the E.C. as it evolved to the EU required not cooperation or coordination but a single European Foreign and Security Policy. It was also seen that the operations required its own powerful secretariat under a Foreign Policy Chief, the EU's High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, a position now held by Javier Solana the former Spanish Minister.

In Caricom, several foreign ministries consist at best of one or two officials plus a protocol clerk. Even in the larger states including Guyana there are insufficient resources at the national level to support effective external analysis and policy formulation. Hence the assignment of responsibilities to individual national missions is of very limited efficacy. The regional secretariat, as far as is known, as currently organised, devotes minimal resources to the problems of joint external representation. Yet it should be clear that the survival of Caricom member states is far more dependent on coping with the external situation rather than on the viability of the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) or any other dimension of integration.

While the region cannot afford a separate secretariat for dealing with external representation, as in the case of the EU, much can still be done. There is a clear case for reorganising the Caricom secretariat so that major focus is given to the effective handling of external relations. At the same time, steps should be taken to mobilise and harness the rich intellectual resources available in other regional bodies such as the Caribbean Development Bank, the ECLAC sub-regional secretariat in Port-of-Spain, the regional universities at their several campuses, Research Insitutes, the research arms of private sector bodies and NGOs including trade unions. The aim should be to insitutionalise such a network.

Caricom never easily adapts nor adopts new ways, witness the controversy which surrounded the RNM and which may now have hobbled it. Meeting the external challenges which confront the region will require a major effort if our small states are to survive. Maybe there is need for a special summit on the need for reorgansing resources to meet such challenges.

A courageous and outspoken foreign minister has shed light on the realities of a situation in which confusion and delay too often pass for the pursuit of foreign policy.