Caricom must be democratized to allow countries to exit the integration movement

Jul 05, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The regional integration movement has lost its historical referent point. Caricom has always been a flawed imitation of the European Economic Community later known as the European Union.
When the European Community decided at the end of the Cold War to expand its membership and to form a Union in response to fears of American economic hegemony, the regional leaders became very anxious about their future.
The region which had long survived in preferential trade relations with Europe became fearful of being overrun by the mega blocs in Europe and the one developing in North America.
The Caribbean leaders summoned an emergency summit and arising out of this commissioned an expert group to recommend the way forward. The report of that expert group, entitled Time for Action, recommended a community of sovereign states.
It was another way of saying to the region’s leaders to continue in the same formation but to widen relations with other parts of the Caribbean.
The threat posed by huge economic mega blocs such as NAFTA pushed the Caribbean to create the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. The Single Market is in place. The single economy is on pause because of the same reason that the British people voted out of the European Union.
The Caribbean Single Market and Economy is patterned after the European Union which whether you like it or not is the most successful integration model in the world. But it is a model which has a weakness in that free movement presents challenges for the more developed economies.
Free movement – be it for goods, services or people – has presented problems for the Caribbean. If a referendum were held today, the people of the Caribbean would vote against integration just like the British did.
There are forces which are pushing for the establishment of a Task Force to study the implications of Brexit. There is no need for this to be done. The region’s leaders must instead ask themselves whether this model of integration that we have signed on to is suited to the Caribbean.
The Federation collapsed not only because of the arithmetic that one from 10 equals zero. It collapsed because it was an agency of the Empire intended to create a Caribbean Crown Colony.
Federation was an imposition by Great Britain to ease its administrative woes. Instead of trying to administer fifteen or more islands and the mainland state of Guyana, Britain sold the leaders of the Caribbean the idea that Federation was the route to freedom.
It was, in fact, a strategy by Britain to reduce the cost and resources of administering so many colonies in the Caribbean.
Jagan opposed it because he saw its mendicant nature. Federation required, for him, Independence. Otherwise it would become a region-wide Crown Colony administrative unit.
Federation failed but Carifta has worked. Carifta was an attempt to create a regional free trade area. It has worked successfully. It has led to a Common Market.
It is true that some countries have benefitted more than others. Those who benefitted would have done so anyway because of the strength of their economies relative to others. Trinidad had a strong economy and free trade area or not would have enjoyed greater trade benefits.
That is the unwritten law of economic integration under the European model: the strong benefit more than the weak.
Instead of moving towards a single economy, the region’s leaders should have poured more effort into improving the single market so that it could have become a stronger free trade area. A single economy is too ambitious for the Caribbean. The Caribbean needs to improve its single economy so as to make it work for all States and not just the stronger states. This is the challenge facing Caricom.
By the time the European Union expanded, Britain was a weakened force within Europe. The influence has shifted eastwards. British industries were always going to suffer as a result of an expanded EU because Britain was no longer the power that it was in the past.
Free movement simply pushed the British people to decide that it was not worth staying in the Union.
Britain has decided by a slim majority to exit the European Union. They can if they wish to rejoin at a later date.
The people of the Caribbean have no such option. The difference between the European Union and Caricom is that the former is more democratic. Caricom is not democratic.
Caricom is an attempt to copy a liberal integration model but without democracy in its operations. The people of the Caribbean have no say in what happens in Caricom. The decision as to the design and future of Caricom are made by the leaders and not by the people or by their elected representative in the region’s national assemblies.
This is what makes Brexit far more superior to the cries that are going to be made this week in Guyana for the region’s leaders to strengthen the integration movement. Those cries have nothing to do with the people.
If Caricom is a community of sovereign states, then each member should have a right to decide whether to stay in or get out.

1 thoughts on “Caricom must be democratized to allow countries to exit the integration movement”

Surujpaul Rampersaud July 5, 2016 at 11:08 am

There are many attacks labeled against Cheddie Jagan for not wanting to join the West Indian Federation, chief among these is the racial argument. However, it cannot be disputed the Federation as you rightfully stated would have taken Guyana backwards. Guyana had internal self government and the next step was independence. The problem with CARIFTA and CARICOM is there are rigid rules governing Origin of Products that inhibits free trade. Save for few exceptions we all produce the same things so that we have much of the same things. Our cost of production also is very high and our goods cannot stand the competition from the more advanced countries without preferential treatment. We need to move the economy more to the tertiary level of production with greater modernization. We are still operating as if the Navigation laws and Mercantilism of the eighteenth century still operate. CARICOM in theory is wonderful but in reality it hardly benefits the member states