lack of leadership stifling Caribbean integration - Gonsalves

Dr Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, is growing more impatient at the slow progress toward regional integration, and has hit out at his colleagues whose lack of political will he now sees as the main impediment.

"We need serious leadership in CARICOM," Gonsalves told the Caribbean Media Corporation.

"And I say this without any water in my mouth; we have not been having serious leadership in CARICOM," he reiterated.

However, the Vincentian leader refused to apportion blame to any specific regional colleague.

The bloc of leaders will hold their next summit in Montego Bay, Jamaica, from July 4-7.

Gonsalves, who has been in the vineyard of regional integration for more than 40 years, said he believes that CARICOM still has a lot to learn and that it can start by looking at the progress being made by the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) that recently signed off on a new treaty, establishing an economic union within the subregion.

CARICOM, which includes the OECS countries, have been working towards a fully functional Single Market and Economy (CSME) by the year 2015 but have suffered several setbacks as they move towards that goal.

Gonsalves pointed out that OECS countries, which includes his own, have positioned themselves ahead of their regional neighbours with the recent signing of the Revised Treaty of Basseterre, establishing the eastern bloc as an economic union.

The subregion has long had a common central bank and currency.

The new OECS treaty provides for improved governance arrangements and deepened functional cooperation among member states, with Gonsalves pointing out that there are provisions outlining the economic union "which goes beyond the CSME".

"It's easy to go beyond the CSME, simply because we already have a common currency and a single court," he said.

Gonsalves insisted that the OECS Economic Union will serve to strengthen, not undermine the CSME process, even while CARICOM states are being invited to be part of the subregional initiative.

The OECS union "provides an avenue to go forward with many more states to do deeper integration, and those who do not want yet to come to the deepest forms, that's fine," he said.

"We have connections still with them at another level of integration."

The upcoming CARICOM summit is expected to take forward the programme for the CSME.

- CMC