CARICOM countries looking towards the next five decades

PORT OF Spain, Trinidad (CMC):

Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders began the first step towards the next five decades of regional integration, expressing every confidence that their deliberations and decisions to be taken over the next three days will achieve that objective.

“The Caribbean Community has done well. It is therefore fitting that we acknowledge and celebrate our golden jubilee,” host Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley told the opening ceremony of the 45th regular meeting of CARICOM on Monday night.

He said the early steps taken in Chaguaramas, west of here, where the original treaty was signed on July 4, 1973, by the leaders of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana, “have led us far beyond what the naysayers and doomsayers were certain would have been a short lifespan and another disastrous shattering.

“But here we are today, 50 years on, side by side in mutual solidarity, regard, respect, and esteem. Strong, committed, unified. Together this regional family of nations can examine with pride our achievements during the last half-century.

“We have faced challenges and have risen to overcome them, despite the difficulties, through our cooperation, our shared goals and, above all else, through our friendship within CARICOM.”

Rowley said that it is his belief that if the founding fathers could speak to the Caribbean today, “they would re-emphasise the essential role of this regional leadership, to empower our people to navigate the storms that the international order consistently throws our way”.

“Our regional integration movement has not only survived, but it has thrived, expanded and flourished. Whilst we recognise that there is a whole lot more to be attained, at this juncture, we can proudly say that we have been going in the right direction and with renewed confidence and vigour,” Rowley said.

CARICOM Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett told the opening ceremony that despite the global crises, the deleterious effects of climate change and natural disasters, and the ongoing threats to the security of the region’s population, “the achievements of the past five decades are proof that vision and concerted action are critical to achieving sustainable prosperity and security for our region”.

“Time and again, despite changing global realities, our community has demonstrated the resolve and resilience necessary to maintain the course of integration,” Barnett said, adding that CARICOM has done well and “it is therefore fitting that we acknowledge and celebrate our golden jubilee”.

“I have every confidence that our deliberations and decisions over the next days of meeting will set us on course for another 50 successful years,” she said.

In his address, the CARICOM chairman and Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said that the past 50 years of CARICOM have seen many achievements.

“We deserve to be proud of our history. It is no mean feat that we are the longest surviving economic integration movement in the developing world, and second only to the European Union globally. It is with justifiable pride that we should all say, I am CARICOM.

“Even as we celebrate this landmark in the evolution of our integration movement, we must be mindful that the symbols and events of celebration do not serve as a distraction from the substance of the heavy lifting still needed to make our community viable, prosperous, secure and beneficial to all of its people.”

Skerrit said that as the region sets itself new targets to ensure that it thrives in this ever-changing global environment, “there are unfinished tasks that we must complete”.

He said if the issues of free movement, non-tariff barriers to trade, reliable and affordable transportation are all fundamental to a truly integrated CARICOM.

“We must address our minds and collective will to resolve some key issues. We have the opportunity on this historic occasion, and as we deliberate over the next few days, to take some decisions that can be truly transformative for our people, and which will shape the future of our sommunity for the next 50 years.”