PM Dean Barrow,
Accelerate Pace Of CSME
But Leave Single Economy On Back-Burner

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.”

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