By Tony Best
Put the Caribbean Single Market on a
fast track towards success but relegate the
troublesome Single Economy onto a slow
boat to its destination.
That, in essence, is what Dean Barrow,
Belize’s Prime Minister, wants to see done to
boost the Caribbean economic integration
movement. His reasoning is clear: the
"Single Economy" poses some serious
and practical problems which may prove far
too difficult to overcome at this time. On the
other hand, the Single Market offers far
brighter opportunities for success throughout
CARICOM.
In an interview with the Carib News,
Barrow, considered by many to be the
region’s most eloquent leader, said that since
joining the group of CARICOM heads of
government less than two years ago, he hadn’t
detected any lessening of enthusiasm or
political will for the regional integration
movement among the new class of Prime
Ministers, hence his desire to see the various
countries press on with switching the implementation
of the CSM into high gear.
Here’s how he put it:
“Without relinquishing the CSME as a
goal we ought to concentrate on making the
Single Market even more effective by sorting
out the wrinkles in terms of things like the
free movement of people and skills and that
sort of thing,” he said. “It’s clearly a hugely
complicated matter and I believe that despite
the practical difficulties that have beset us,
there is no lessening of will and it is therefore
a work in progress. I don’t sense that there is
any belief developing that we ought to turn
back. We do recognize that the reality is hard
enough for us to know that the single economy
will prove rather more difficult to realization
than at first may have been thought in
the first and continuing flush of enthusiasm.
“But even if it is going to be a matter
of looking at the glass as half full rather than
half empty, I think there is a lot to be proud
of,” Barrow, a graduate of the University of
the West Indies, said. “I think there is a great
deal of continuing work to be done on the
Single Market, refining it and making sure it
operates as seamless as possible.
After we have done that, then, in good
enough time we can perhaps rethink our
efforts with a view to trying to overcome the
huge conceptual and practical problems as
far as the Single Economy is concerned,
common currency and all of that sort of
thing.”
Barrow who along with David
Thompson Prime Minister of Barbados, and
Tillman Thomas, Grenada’s leader, was honored
in New York recently by the American
Foundation for the University of the West
Indies, said that Belize had no intentions of
becoming part of the Organization of Eastern
Caribbean States, OECS, as some people had
speculated that it would do.
“In terms of where we are, as it were
at one end of the arc and the OECS countries
close to another end of the CARICOM arc, I
don’t know that that makes a great deal of
practical sense,” He added. “I think we
receive our position on that one.”
Barrow, a former Attorney-General and
Foreign Minister who later served as
Opposition Leader before returning to government
as Prime Minister, is confident
that Belize and its CARICOM NEIGHBORS
WOULD SOON EMERGE FROM THE
TOUGH economic times, caused by the
global economic recession.“Clearly, the
flame of human progress is imperishable and
I want to say to Belizeans and, indeed, to the
larger CARICOM community that difficult
though it might currently seem we are going
to get over this period,” he insisted.
“The world is coming out of recession
albeit slowly and we are a region that’s distinguished
by the great gifts bestowed on us
in terms of natural beauty, in terms of all
sorts of advantages, not least among which is
the intellectual strength that comes out of our
region. I am optimistic and I am sanguine
and I think those ought to be the watchwords
of the entire region.”