GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands: Fears about weighty and unwelcome obligations the Cayman Islands could be compelled to take on as an associate member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) were firmly removed last week as Dr Edwin Carrington, Secretary-General of the regional body, spoke with the media.
 
On his first visit to the Islands -- a three-day stopover that began on Monday, December 11 – Carrington explained that Cayman, as an associate member of CARICOM, fell within the last of three tiers of types of associations countries can have with the regional organisation.
 
He said that within that category, known as the Functional Cooperation grouping, Cayman would not be involved with economic integration issues, such as the highly debated move towards the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), as some countries with full membership status would be.
 
Far from having to contemplate economic country-to-country relationships with regional counterparts that have dissimilar social and economic conditions to those of the Cayman Islands, the media was presented with a list of ways in which Cayman would be the beneficiary in its relationship with CARICOM.
 
According to Carrington, the groups into which countries fall in their relationships with CARICOM include “Economic Integration, Foreign Policy Coordination and Functional Cooperation.”
 
In the Functional Cooperation grouping, the focus is on “education, disaster preparedness, culture, and other such quality-of-life issues,” Carrington said.
 
Leader of Government Business, Kurt Tibbetts, who attended the media briefing, underscored Cayman’s associate membership status and said, “There has been some amount of misconception locally that associate membership has meant full membership.”
 
Tibbetts described the Cayman-CARICOM relationship as one that could be discontinued, should Cayman choose to do so.
 
He said, “Membership is not a birthright. If we do not want to continue, we can choose to do so. But, we recognise that we are one region and, regardless of the peculiarities and differences, there is much common ground. For example, there are threats that all of us in the region face and we realise that battling them one by one makes no sense. Almost every single sector and sub-sector (in Cayman) can benefit from this relationship with CARICOM. This is because CARICOM, knowing what other countries face as challenges, can help to create collaboration between countries.”
 
Even though Messrs Tibbetts and Carrington confirmed Cayman’s associate member status, Carrington revealed that one of his objectives on his visit was to obtain Cayman’s input with “suggestions for coding the status of associate members (because) the details relating to the status of associate members has not been put into one document.”
 
Carrington explained that there would not be a coding for each associate member but rather, there would be one document, which would be relevant to all associate members, and “drafted broadly enough” that each associate member would be accommodated.
 
Asked if, based on this new coding exercise, there was the possibility of changes to rules relating to associate members – new regulations that could negatively affect members like Cayman – Carrington underscored that the objective was for all associate members to be in full agreement with the coding before the document is finalised.
 
Against the background of the move towards the CSME in 2008 – the target year for the economic integration of all CARICOM member countries – Carrington was asked if associate members would need to face another set of changes at that time.
 
Carrington said he could not give any specifics on that point but that he “could never say that something like that would not affect members in some way.”
 
Carrington pointed instead to possible positive results that could arise for associate members after 2008 and said that one benefit of the CSME move could be in relation to the policy for the “free movement of graduates throughout CARICOM countries.”
 
The Secretary-General made reference to upcoming amendments to the Foreign Nationals and Commonwealth Citizens (Employment) Act – changes that will remove a work permit requirements for these persons.
 
Carrington said he surmised that once such a measure is put in place, persons living in territories where there were University of the West Indies campuses, would have an advantage over other persons – such as those in Cayman – who would have find rent, and other expenses to attend University on those campuses.
 
Therefore, against that background, “Mechanisms like scholarships and online teaching cooperation” would possibly need to be put in place for persons living in countries where there are no campuses, Carrington said.