By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
July 7, 2023
Curtains closed on CARICOM’s 45th Regular Heads of Government Meeting on Wednesday in downtown Port of Spain, Trinidad, and arising from its discussions includes a further expansion of the CSME’s free movement of its people, as just one of the major decisions taken at the meeting.
Dominican Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who took up the reigns as CARICOM Chair this week, shared that CARICOM has agreed to “connect the dots” through the region allowing for all categories of people to travel for work. And while he says there might be some legal issues depending on the territory, member states have been given until March 30th to examine their legal issues and return to CARICOM.
He says “at 50, they could not leave Trinidad and Tobago and not speak about the core of the integration movement that gives the freedom to move within the Caribbean Community”, having served the community well, by arriving at that decision at this particular meeting.
However, it was mentioned by Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley later down in the press conference, that Haiti had expressed its desire not to be included in the free movement deal given its current domestic situation.
During the media’s question segment, PM Mottley added that “The heads agreed we are now moving beyond the freedom of movement of skills to freedom of movement of people, and out of an abundance of caution some aspects of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas may need to be amended between now and next March 2024”.
She says this is to facilitate, “an approach that does not make countries liable to any form of lawsuit with respect to some of the rights. So there has to be a minimum set of rights guaranteed for the citizens. That will be discussed and agreed upon. That will be captured in the amendments to the treaty.”
Noting that these changes might have to be financed for some countries, she noted that many leaders were looking at the CARICOM Development Fund, in order to put in place the mechanism that would be able to guarantee each country could bring its minimum level of services up to the same acceptable period of free movement.
She says this difference is found in the revised treaty of Chaguaramas, which did not exist 30 to 35 years ago, and while she mentioned that the “The treaty provides for restrictions for national security purposes. The treaty provides for restrictions for balance of payments purposes.”
Mottley said “We have determined that in order to facilitate freedom of movement we may have to do it in a way where we guarantee a minimum level of rights, that may relate to primary education, pre-primary, secondary education, as well as primary and emergency healthcare. While we are already covered with social security rights that exist within CARICOM, what we are doing is to ensure the desire of heads is met by the reality of implementation, and we give ourselves this period of time to make the amendments to the treaty so that countries can do so without the fear”.
As for regional transport, Chairman Skerrit says the report on the issue has been received from the Caribbean Development Bank, which was mandated to engage in a study to examine air transport within the Caribbean and to come up with recommendations on how they should go about addressing the issue in the absence of LIAT. He says the CDB has “firm numbers in terms of the cost, with them looking at a seven-to-eight-year cost program, I am hoping we could get the buy-in of all of us in respect to this entity which we believe will complement what CAL and others are doing”. The role in which LIAT played in interregional transport, it is yet to be able to fill that void, and therefore an arrangement soon to fill that void is needed. Skerrit spoke to Inter-Caribbean Airlines out of Turks and Caicos which has also increased some flights in the region in the absence of LIAT along with Bahamas Air for doing some flights.
PM Rowley interjected to note that CAL has also presented a new strategic plan, which involves the airline obtaining additional equipment to do more in the region, while PM Mottley added that her country was about to sign an agreement with CAL. She commended Bahamas’ PM Philip Davis for also stepping up to the plate, despite not being a signatory to the single market economy for testing out the market this summer period, for connections from North America into the region. Mottley remarked one of the issues being a decrease in seats coming from North America, while there was the matter of having access to planes and pilots, skilled workers. To this she says the approach must be a cooperative approach by all members, as “we can no longer believe that any one airline can solve it overnight”.
Meanwhile, Skerrit added that he planned on hosting a retreat for regional leaders come August 18th to the 19th, where leaders would not be required to be in suits, but gather in a more relaxed setting, yet focusing on critical and core issues at hand ahead of Guyana’s next heads of government meeting. With regards to Guyana, PM Skerrit praised its President, Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali for his involvement in boosting agriculture in the region, with a heightened interest among regional farmers looking to partner with the nation for assisting in regional food security.
So far they have been mobilizing the resources, financial and technical, while agreements continue to be signed among the countries such as Dominica and Guyana, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, for the sharing of animal resources, such as cattle, as well as expertise in the area of agriculture, farming and animal husbandry. The Dominican PM shared that the power of reducing the food import bill was in the hands of the people through the learning of eating what we produce, noting that the supermarkets would sell what is bought.
This year’s meeting saw the sitting in of several high-level figures from around the globe, including their meeting with US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, the CARICOM leaders urged America to remove its embargoes on Cuba and sanctions on Venezuela, since they see it as having too many far-reaching implications on the region.
Also pledging support for Haiti, was visiting Rwanda Prime Minister Paul Kagame, who also sat in meetings with CARICOM heads this week. PM Skerrit disclosed how the region can join forces with Rwanda in providing some tangible support on the ground in Haiti, and finding a resolution to the crisis faced by the nation. He added that the East African country had promised to engage with the African Union, in order to get a wider coalition of support from the continent on the issue of Haiti.
In also speaking to their conversation with the Prime Minister of South Korea, Skerrit revealed that while they have been a long-standing partner with the region for several decades, who also shared its continued support to the region.
PM Skerrit added that Martinique and Curaçao will soon ascend to be Associate Members of CARICOM joining Anguilla, Turks and Caicos Islands, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands and Bermuda, in that grouping. PM Skerrit said that all the paper work is expected to be completed by August, ratification to be done by September and a formal welcoming when the heads of government meet in Guyana next February.
In lighter topics decided upon, which also got those gathered at the heads table chuckling, was the matter of cricket and the West Indies team, to which the CARICOM Chair said he had taken the decision to appoint TT PM Dr. Keith Rowley as the new Chairman of the sub-committee on cricket, given his passionate posts on Facebook regarding the teams performance. Skerrit said he was of the belief that “we still had to rally around the West Indies” and comments from the people came from their “passion, commitment for the game” with the reality being not wanting to lose. With this in mind, the CARICOM Cricket sub committee are expected to meet in the coming days with the President of the West Indies Cricket Board, on how they can work together to better position the sport in the Caribbean, and see a return to the glorious days West Indies cricket is known for all across the world.