Political Union? The devil is in the detail

Sep 14, 2008 Features / Columnists, Ronald Sanders

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By Sir Ronald Sanders

The leaders of the seven-nation Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) are reported to have agreed on September 11th that their countries will form a political union with Trinidad and Tobago.

Reports say that the OECS leaders will meet the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, on October 31st “to flesh out the agreement”.

The implication of this statement is that they have agreed to the notion of a political union in principle. But, of course, the devil is always in the detail, and it is facing up to the detail of a political union that will prove to be the greatest challenge.

I reveal a bias in this matter. I strongly support a political union of as many states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as possible, but I equally firmly believe that such a union should start with a political union of the OECS countries alone and that they collectively should negotiate with any other country with which they might wish to integrate politically.

The good news about this latest OECS decision is that the three member states that announced last month that they would form a political union with Trinidad and Tobago have now decided not to fragment the OECS but to seek to fashion collectively a union with their bigger oil-rich neighbour.

In light of the reported decision by the majority of governments of CARICOM to sign a full Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU), CARICOM itself is now in danger of fragmentation and the Single Market and Economy is in peril.

What will dictate market and other economic arrangements between CARICOM states is not the uncompleted CSME, but the EPA with the EU.

Therefore, a political union of all CARICOM countries would help to ameliorate the damage to the regional project by the EPA with the EU.

One assumes that a political union would mean one country, one market, one currency, one central bank, one stock exchange, harmonised laws for taxation and investment, and freedom of movement of people.

Such a union would at least have the chance of strengthening all the weak participants and bolstering the stronger ones.

If anything is to come of the OECS decision to form a political union with Trinidad, a series of steps suggest themselves. First, the OECS should proceed to form a political union amongst themselves.

This would be a natural progression since they already have a common currency, a common central bank, and a common judiciary.

It would be important for the union to be a federation and not a unitary state, with the federal government shouldering responsibility for (a) crime and security (including drug trafficking), (b) foreign affairs including trade negotiations, (c) defence, (d) tertiary education; (e) the single economy, (f) specialised medical treatment including a major hospital for complicated surgery and cancer.

All other matters should stay with national governments. There should be free movement of goods, services, capital and people.

The Federal Government should be elected from across all seven countries, and its headquarters could be St Lucia or Antigua temporarily.

Second, the OECS federal government should then negotiate the terms for a political union with Trinidad and Tobago.

Those terms should include oil and gas prices for OECS at the same level that is now accorded to companies and residents of Trinidad and Tobago, free movement of people and a fund to compensate areas and industries in the existing OECS countries that may be adversely affected.

It is obvious that Trinidad and Tobago will want free movement of goods, capital and services to consolidate its economic position in the OECS markets.

The matter of which currency is adopted would have to be worked out, but Trinidad and Tobago would undoubtedly dictate those terms. In return, the federal capital would move to Trinidad and Tobago.

Third, the door should be kept open for other CARICOM countries to join the political union if they wish to do so.

None of this should adversely affect the operations of CARICOM or the work to establish a single market and economy. If the OECS countries do form themselves into a political union, it simply means that they will be in CARICOM as one country rather than seven, but they will be a stronger entity for it.

If a political union with Trinidad and Tobago is accomplished, then CARICOM would consist of the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Suriname and the political union of Trinidad and Tobago and the OECS – eight countries instead of the present 15.

There has been some speculation that a political union of the OECS and Trinidad and Tobago may not be a unitary state or a federation in the classic ways in which these are known.

Instead, it has been suggested that these countries (except for Montserrat which is still a colony of the United Kingdom) will each retain their “external sovereignty” so that there will still be seven flags at the UN, the OAS, the Commonwealth and so on. Just how that would work is uncertain.

One would have thought that a political union is a “sovereign entity” and just how in international law and in international convention there could be a “sovereign entity of sovereign entities” is at best puzzling.

Short of a full political union, the option available to the OECS and Trinidad and Tobago would be to create amongst themselves a Single Market and Economy.

But since this is exactly what the countries of CARICOM have started to do – albeit at a snail’s pace – what would be the point, except to have a Single Market and Economy within a Single Market and Economy, except that one group would be moving faster than the other?

If the objective is not to form a classic political union, but to ape the economic arrangements of the European Union, why do the OECS countries and Trinidad and Tobago not simply push the pace within CARICOM itself by reforming the organisation in the way that is necessary, and by doing so keep Barbados, Jamaica and Guyana on board?

I end this commentary as I started it: the devil is in the detail of any plans to form a political union.

(The writer is a business consultant and former Caribbean diplomat)Responses to: [email protected]

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