THREE CRITICAL VIEWPOINTS ON CARICOM
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
April 25, 2004
AS THEY prepare for the 25th Heads of Government Conference in Grenada this July, the governments of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should reflect seriously on the concerns expressed by three of the region's well known and respected intellectuals on the state of our economic integration movement.
Specifically the ”democratic” and "implementation deficits", as viewed by two of them -Havelock Brewster and Norman Girvan; and the relevance of the integration model itself for today's regional/international challenges, as questioned by Lloyd Best.
All with commendable credentials as advocates of appropriate forms of regional economic and political integration, what the trio of economists has separately articulated, are even more relevant against the backdrop of deliberations and decisions of the 24th CARICOM Summit in Montego Bay last July that coincided with the Community's 30th anniversary.
Effective governance of the 15-member Community (still counting Haiti), continues to be as elusive - amid all the ole' talk on creation of a high-level mechanism with executive authority -and the related promised "readiness" of the inauguration of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME), or even its single market component.
**In his critique of `The Rose Hall Declaration on Regional Governance and Integrated Development’, Brewster - an early co-author, with Clive Thomas, of `The Dynamics of West Indian Economic Integration’ - has pointed to 14 "lost years" since 1989 when the decision was taken to inaugurate to establish a single economic space, as characterised by the CSME.
`The Rose Hall Declaration’ was released, along with the Communiqué of the 24th CARICOM Summit in Montego Bay. In his analysis, Brewster has also warned against "plunging headlong", in the haste to recover lost time, without what he considers to be quite vital -"democratic consultation" into a European Union type system.
A central feature of Brewster's arguments is the issue often raised by regional scholars and intellectuals - namely, the passion with which CARICOM leaders so often affirm their "national sovereignty", which itself is not grounded in the Chaguaramas Treaty that established the Community, while expecting that "regional integration will proceed in that political and juridical context..."
Mobilising Support
Lamenting any concerted move on the part of the Community's governments to mobilise popular support to advance the process of economic integration, Brewster has argued:
"If CARICOM were truly serious about the involvement of their citizens as a dynamic pressure group for integration, their participation would need to be organised as a formally recognised standing body of the Community with defined substantive responsibilities..."
He clearly had in mind an institution like a CARICOM Parliament. But certainly not in the form of what currently exists as the Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP) that meets either once a year or in two years, and functions merely as a deliberative body, generating little or no national/regional interest.
**For his part, Norman Girvan who, until recently also served the Caribbean region as Secretary General of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), has referred to the serious "implementation deficit" to make the CSME a reality.
Last month, the Prime Minister of Barbados, Owen Arthur, who has lead responsibility for the CSME, was evidently irritated by criticisms of the slow pace to operationalise at least the single market dimension of the CSME.
He told a media briefing at the conclusion of the 15th Inter-Sessional Meeting of CARICOM leaders in St, Kitts, that news about the work being done on the CSME "may not be sexy", but assured that there has been "quite substantial achievement".
Showing a brave, positive face on the CSME may have been Arthur's way to diffuse rising criticisms, especially within the past year, over failures to host scheduled `CSME –readiness’ Consultations, and the lack of adequate delivery capacity of a number of governments.
On Friday night, Arthur was scheduled to deliver a public lecture at the `Frank Collymore Hall’ in Bridgetown, in the CARICOM `Distinguished Lecture Series’ on the `CSME - The Way Forward’.
Implementation 'Deficit'
He would have had the advantage to inform himself of Brewster's critique of `The Rose Hall Declaration’, as well as Girvan's reflections on the "implementation deficits" for operationalising the CSME, as the economist identified in a keynote address last month in Trinidad and Tobago.
Girvan had alluded to some 79 "action elements" listed by the Community Secretariat to give effect to the CSME, the vast majority being legislative or administrative initiatives that each member country of CARICOM must take in relation to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.
Based on his assessment, Girvan noted that "fully two-thirds of the actions required to give effect to the CSME are still pending or incomplete" - actions he categorised as "CSME implementation deficit".
This deficit is "most pronounced", he observed, in the categories of harmonisation of laws, sectoral programmes and common support measures" - measures that relate to the creation of a Single Economy.
The problem is also applicable to free movement of goods, services, capital and persons and right of establishment for the Single Market arrangement in the creation of the desired common economic space.
Girvan has recalled that the existing scenario corroborates the analysis made in July last year by Brewster about a serious state of unpreparedness by CARICOM for the inauguration of the CSME.
Additionally, in pointing to a widening gap between the so-called 'rich' and 'poor' member states of CARICOM, 'Girvan observed that while in 1980 this "gap", in per capita terms, was about ten to one, it had doubled by 2001 to 20 to one.
As he sees it, this widening gap poses some "special problems for maintaining the momentum of the CSME"; and has asked whether "it does not, in and of itself, constitute a possible threat to the political durability of the Community..."
**Even as Girvan, who frequently referred to issues raised in Brewster's critique of `The Rose Hall Declaration’, was emphasising the need for a more matured, focused and flexible approach, to regional economic integration, Lloyd Best was praising Girvan's own address at St. Augustine last month as "one of the most candid, if succinct appraisals available (on the CSME)".
Best, writing as Managing Editor in the current edition of the `Trinidad and Tobago Review’, alluded to some of CARICOM's "current travails" and scathingly noted that "our approach (to economic integration) has been to adopt a wholly inadequate and even absurd model of integration devised for the Western European case".
He feels that only now is CARICOM beginning to come to grips with "the consequences and to plumb the depths of this diabolical epistemic overhang".
Let's see what emerges from the forthcoming 25th CARICOM Summit scheduled for Grenada in July.