Caribe

The Caribbean: A Long-Term Road Map for Integration

John Hunter

03/06/2012

Opinión

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Towards a new federal configuration?

From time to time the idea of a renewed federation of the West Indies is brought up. A variety of figures have done so over the years including heads of government and Sir Arthur Lewis in the 1970s; heads of government again under the Manning Initiative in the 1990s and under Manning’s renewed push for political union between 2001 and 2010; newspaper columnists (even in Jamaica) and most recently by Tennyson Joseph. Sometimes the idea is broached in broad, general terms while at other times more detailed plans are presented. The discussion of such details can and has at times been criticized as premature given the current state of regional integration. However, though it might seem as if such plans are unnecessary for the time being, they are essential in a long term vision of where want our region to be. In order to know what steps to take we need to know where we are going. And we will never know where we are going without long term vision.

By themselves such plans dealing with the workings of a new federal arrangement are of little value (outside of academic discussion) unless they are coupled with ideas on how to get to such arrangements from the current state of affairs. Such discussions are necessary if further political and economic unity is indeed the goal of the region. Even if ultimately the region as a whole chooses to stop short of a new political federation, there should be long-term plans for further integration that make it possible for some or all of the countries in the region to pursue federation at some point in the future if they desire; and to do so while avoiding the mistakes that lead to the failure of the first attempt.

Any new federal arrangement in the future is likely to bear the hallmarks of the preceding incremental steps in integration. For instance if the incremental steps saw the OECS forming a single state first; and then Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Belize, Guyana and the "Eastern Antilles" joining afterwards, we would likely see a six province federation. On the other hand if the OECS does not form a single state first, we could see a thirteen province federation. Either arrangement is likely to throw up debate and controversy and will have its own pros and cons. Likewise a new federal parliament might one day be derived from a CARICOM Parliament which may either have a single chamber or two chambers. The upper house of a new federal parliament might end up resembling the German Bundesrat (“Federal Council”) more than the US or Australian Senate if it is derived from the new Council of Ambassadors that was proposed in 2010 by Jamaica’s then Prime Minister. Unlike the US Senate, members of the Bundesrat are not elected and never have been (either by the populations of their home Lander or by the parliaments of their Lander). Instead they are delegates sent by the various state governments, not unlike ambassadors in a sense. Any new federal parliament is likely to also be located at the same spot as any CARICOM parliament if full political union is achieved among all CARICOM member states. For that reason the location of a CARICOM parliament is going to be important if the region is to avoid the acrimony of the past concerning the siting of the old parliament in one of the “big” territories and far away from any particular part of the union. As such a central, neutral location on one of the smaller islands, such as Nevis, would allow for a fresh start and to head off any regional rivalries concerning the placement of such an institution. It would also be in line with the policy of spreading CARICOM’s institutions around the region.

Movement of the people....

Before getting to a CARICOM parliament, the immediate objective should be allowing integration to be felt by the man and the woman on the street (and not just those on the high street). Plans at the macro level need to be connected with the situation at the micro level. People connect with ideas that touch their daily lives. One critique of the integration effort (Freedom Of Movement: The Cornerstone Of The Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) published in January 2004: http://sta.uwi.edu/salises/workshop/csme/paper/pwickham.pdf) stated that the CARICOM Skills Certificate regime is too exclusionary as it would apply to a small percentage of the population. However what this critique was done before the launch of the Caribbean Vocational Qualification (CVQ) Certificate in 2005 which allows for much the same free movement as the Skills Certificate but is open to a much wider category of persons. Efforts like this need to be continued and expanded.

While the CVQ has a lot of potential to open up free movement to perhaps the majority of the population in each member state, this means nothing if they have no reason to move freely. That means that the member states need to deal with intra-Community transportation as well as integrating the labour markets. One of the main barriers to labour market integration is the fact that job advertising is still restricted mainly to local papers and these local papers do NOT put most the ads up on their online editions. This means that jobs are virtually invisible except to persons who possess a physical copy of the paper. In the age of internet it is extremely puzzling that our local media are so behind the times. Given that they are private entities though, the only way to change the situation in concert around the region would be to have CARICOM member states agree to new legislation regarding the publishing of job advertisements, making it a requirement of any newspaper or other form of media to put up job advertisements/postings in all the forms of media that they publish in.

At the same time, the member states could probably agree to some minimum standards in job adverts (such as publishing the salary on offer and whether it is negotiable or not, and requiring the names of those companies who are hiring to be published in the ad – there have been ads at times which are too cryptic and may well be ads for criminal front organizations or even outright criminal enterprises). One look at job adverts as seen online and in papers in Britain will readily highlight how and why Britain's labour market is more dynamic and more integrated than any local labour market in the Caribbean. Jobs are advertised openly, with salaries being published in the advertisements and many are published online, thus allowing persons from as far away as Poland to see these jobs and apply for them (giving rise to the "Polish plumber" cliché).

Transportation

For transportation there clearly needs to a CARICOM Open Skies Agreement among member states and between CARICOM as a community and our regional partners such as the United States, Central America and Mercosur and the Andean Community. Concurrently the hardened positions being held by various governments concerning Caribbean Airlines and LIAT need to be dispensed with. As both Jamaica’s and Trinidad & Tobago’s governments are supposedly minor shareholders in LIAT (as listed on the LIAT website) it would be in their interest to see LIAT profitable. So a cooperation agreement between LIAT and CAL as an adjunct to a general CARICOM agreement on air travel should be worked out. This cooperation agreement should then be open to Bahamasair and Surinam Airways and any other national airline of any CARICOM member state (or even any other locally owned airline in any CARICOM member state) to join up to. Integral to any inter-airline cooperation agreement and CARICOM air transport agreement should be the setting up of a CARICOM International Airlines Holding Company (with all Caricom governments as equal shareholders) which would be tasked with acquiring aircraft (either by purchase or lease) for the airlines that have signed up to the inter-airline cooperation agreement, since presumably as a government company they might be able to acquire these aircraft at cheaper rates than the airlines could individually (although the airlines would not be prevented from acquiring aircraft independently if they so choose).

An airline pilots’ associations’ agreement should also be part and parcel of this thrust. There is little point in JALPA and TTALPA acting independently when the majority of their members are working for the same company. That is a recipe for ineffective union action and only allows CAL to play their members like so many fiddles. This leaves their members vulnerable to the prospect of future ill-treatment by the management as a result. JALPA and TTALPA should be working together more to secure the rights of their members in relation to CAL and perhaps the Caribbean Airline Pilots Association (CALPA) should have a greater role in negotiations with CAL.

Energy

The transportation policy should also have cross-linkages with a new common energy policy. Etihad Airways (the airline of Abu Dhabi) and Boeing are investigating using Salicornia plants (many species of which can be found around the world including in the Caribbean) to produce jet fuel (well jet biofuel). A part of a CARICOM air transport agreement and any inter-airline cooperation agreement should be the research and pursuit of renewable energy for air transport use. This would bring down costs eventually, making the airlines profitable and making air transport easier. This should be coupled with the reintroduction of the Single Domestic Space (even if in modified form such that it only applied to CARICOM nationals at first (and maybe nationals who do not require a visa to visit any CARICOM country such as Brazilians) while a common visa policy was worked out). Although REDJet folded, it apparently resulted in more business being conducted between the destinations it connected. This would seem to prove that increased communication links will lead to increased business and understanding and further interest in integration.

A common energy policy aimed at introducing renewable energy throughout the region and interconnecting the member states' local energy grids would reduce energy costs across the region and be a tangible benefit of integration - it would lead to cheaper light bills. Who wouldn't want that? And here again integration would be connecting with people in their daily life. It would be directly benefitting their pockets. Large scale use of renewable energy might even allow for the reintroduction of a ferry service (for both passengers and cargo) that could connect all the member states.

Security

A common security policy would also be essential. Freedom of movement of some citizens is already allowed and the categories are expected to increase in the future. Meanwhile criminals already move pretty much as they wish throughout the region. If criminals can commit crimes in Jamaica and escape through Haiti and the Bahamas onwards to the United States or commit crimes the Windward Islands and Trinidad & Tobago and escape to Venezuela and Colombia, then we are only failing our citizens by limiting our police forces. There are two possible routes to take in furthering security in the region. Firstly we can establish a separate regional police force (although that may be too strong a term; a “Regional Security Agency” might be a more accurate name) tasked with certain roles (information gathering and sharing, cross-border investigations into organized crime, assisting national police forces in local investigations when requested). This Regional Security Agency would be similar to Europol, and would encompass IMPACS as well as any new services which might be established such as a Caribbean Office of Investigations, A Caribbean Organized Crime Unit, etc. The second route would be to allow local security forces to cooperate more effectively without setting up a liaison organization (although this could be more difficult) through the sharing of databases and allowing hot pursuit by local security forces into neighbouring jurisdictions.

Education and Health

Education and Health also need to be addressed as a next step. Good health and education are at the heart (or should be at the heart) of any and all other policies. Uneducated and unhealthy populations are not going to produce hordes of people capable of flying an aircraft, building complex undersea pipelines, solving serious and complicated crimes or conduct ground-breaking research into renewable energy. We have populations which are mostly educated and healthy at the moment, but there is always room for improvement and any failure to maintain at least the current educational and health standards will see our region backsliding into the past while the rest of the world sprints into the future. Education and health are the foundations of most of the national development plans by member states. And here we see a perfect example of the necessity of relating the plans at the macro (regional) level with plans and situations at the micro (country and local area) level. Barbados’ National Strategic Plan (2005-2025), Jamaica’s Vision 2030, Guyana’s National Development Strategy all have the same basic goals; reducing poverty and crime, increasing literacy and life expectancy, and providing a healthy and stimulating environment of First World standards. Now certainly these states can probably achieve their stated objectives individually; however cooperating in certain critical areas (energy, agriculture (which was not touched on here), security, education and health) is likely to allow them to achieve those goals even faster and possibly surpass those goals. After all an interconnected energy grid for the region (which is something Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands have been attempting to pursue) will lower energy costs and provide a large market that would be more attractive for electricity companies to invest in and thereby provide competition. The experience of the telecommunications sector with the arrival of competing companies should be proof enough that this competition will result in lower electricity rates. But this cannot be achieved in the small, disconnected grids we see today. So cooperation would be needed. Similarly there needs to be more coordination on education akin to the early days of CXC's formation, with a revamping of the education system across the region being the focus this time. We need to look at the education policies of those countries that score highly on the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and other such exams and apply those policies locally. Additionally we need to address early childhood health, as malnutrition (even mild malnutrition or simply eating too much junk food) can have a detrimental effect on children during the crucial developmental years after which their brain development may be seriously affected. This will obviously affect how well these children can be educated and thus how successful our common West Indian society will be in the future. And education will be crucial in binding this society together. Too often our children know next to nothing about their own countries, let alone about the other countries across which our nation is scattered.

To address this, a revamped education policy must include the reintroduction of civics in all schools in the region and comparative civics (wherein the organs of state, constitutions and basic laws, rights and duties of citizenship are compared across CARICOM countries to show just how similar we all are). This would prepare them to be good, constructive citizens of their own countries and prepare them for the Single Market and Economy and to be good, constructive residents of other member states should they move among them. This should be coupled with a policy of student exchanges and having schools adopt sister schools in each CARICOM territory. A regional Schools Competition (based around these school pairings) might also help in bringing people together. At the university level, there should also be more movement among the territories. There should be at least one field trip to another territory, preferably one of the non-campus territories and non-contributing territories in the case of UWI in agreement with local tertiary education institutions (such as the University of Belize, the University of The Bahamas in the non-campus, contributing territories of UWI and the University of Guyana and the Anton de Kom University of Suriname for the non-contributing territories).

Finally, the mention of Suriname brings me to another point - any revamped education system should include compulsory Dutch classes (in addition to current second language classes) in all schools from primary level up until at least third form/ ninth grade in high school (and when Haiti joins up to the Single Market there should then be a choice between Dutch and French as a compulsory secondary language; should the Dominican Republic finally get to join CARICOM then the choice should be to choose two out of three of the languages available; Dutch, French and Spanish). In Suriname the equivalent should be compulsory English classes in all schools at the equivalent levels (and again, when Haiti joins up there should be a choice between English and French and if the Dom. Rep. joins it should be a choice of two out of English, Spanish and French). Although English is widely used across the region (even in Suriname), learning a second or even third language is good for the development of a child and would only help them to be ready to compete in an increasing globalized world.

Source: http://www.normangirvan.info

https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/158436?language=en