By: Staff Writer
March 1, 2022
The Caribbean Community Secretary General said that the community does not have to agree on every single iota for the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) to be pushed forward as the Thirty-Third Inter-Sessional Meeting of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community gets under way.
Dr Carla Barnett, speaking at the opening press conference on Monday, said: “The implementation of the CSME as you well know, is under the leadership of the honourable Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, and she has been meeting within that committee and with the CARICOM Secretariat staff to work through what needs to be done to accelerate implementation.
She added: “One of the important things that will be on the table at this meeting is a protocol on the enhanced cooperation among member states that will allow subgroups of member states to work together closely so that we do not remain bound by the current understanding that we all have to agree to every single step before we make a single step.”
Agreement on modalities has been an issue that has hampered the success of the CSME regionwide, as member states find it difficult to agree on how far and how deep certain measures can go.
Dr Barnett added: “Because that’s one of the issues that keeps back forward movement in the community. The growing feeling is that if there can be like minds among a subset of countries, and they want to move forward on a particular aspect of the CSME, they ought to be able to move forward together and then the remainder who may not be ready at the at the same time, can join on when they are able to and so this protocol would allow that kind of forward movement.” She continued, “So that I think is probably the most important thing that will, that will be addressed at this at this meeting, in addition to taking stock of course of as to where we are.”
Dr Barnett also spoke about the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in Haiti, where she said in relation to Haiti that discussions about Haiti have been happening within the Secretariat and public officials, but those discussions are not ready for wider public dissemination. What will happen is that the CARICOM will continue to reach out to Haiti on where it can be “most helpful.”
Dr Barnett also said: “CARICOM has offered good offices to Haiti from time to time to be able to offer assistance for strengthening of administration, for strengthening electoral processes, or training of security forces for different kinds of undertakings. We feel at this time that we will continue to have those things on the table.”
Regional Security will also top the list for discussions at these meetings where Ms Barnett, said: “Security is on the agenda. It’s always is on the agenda. It’s an issue of top priority in all of our countries and part of the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, of course, is that we’ve seen certain kinds of activity, increase: transnational crime, cyber-crime, violent crime, in the home, and in our societies in our communities. So yes, that is a matter on the agenda.”
Jamaica is on a bloody murder spree for the beginning of the year and have already racked up over 100 killings for the year in one of the bloodiest killing seasons on the island in recent years.
The violence spreading throughout the region should be of grave concern because most if not all of the English speaking Caribbean countries share the same cultural background and had similar beginnings.