ST JOHNS, Antigua: Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Heads of Government opened the 44th meeting of the OECS Authority on Wednesday with a strong signal that the work to create an OECS Economic Union is set to enter a new, intensified stage. The meeting also welcomed newly elected administration of Sir John Compton of St Lucia, who was represented by his External Affairs Minister, Rufus Bousquet.

Chairman of the OECS Authority, Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer of Antigua and Barbuda, in his address to the opening ceremony, announced that the Heads will use the two day meeting to fine tune remaining matters connected to the draft OECS Economic Union Treaty in preparation for a major sub-regional public awareness and sensitization exercise. The draft Treaty was unveiled at the last meeting of the Authority in June 2006, but Heads requested further refinement and inclusion of a few additional provisions.

“At this meeting, we will be giving consideration to the revised and refined draft, with a view to its endorsement as a basis for engaging in public discussion and consultation over the next six months throughout the OECS,” Spencer said.

“This is a process in which the Heads of Government are expected to be integrally and intimately engaged giving direct leadership and being actively involved in taking the message to the OECS people and interacting and discoursing with them on this fundamental matter of national and regional governance,” he added.

Bousquet, in a statement to the opening on behalf of Prime Minister Compton, reiterated St Lucia’s commitment to the regional integration process “as the only viable alternative path for the progress of our small island states”.  He called for the Heads to use the 44th Authority meeting to work towards a new beginning for the integration movement “characterized by a renewed commitment to build a strong ‘trust’ among ourselves as leaders, between us and our constituents in our various countries and among our individual nation states.  Bousquet said crime and security which was a leading issue in St Lucia’s recent elections, is a matter whose solution lends itself to a common approach.

“St Lucia will make some concrete proposals in due course on how we might approach this problem, thereby providing tangible evidence on how we can make regional integration work by touching the lives of people and contributing to an enhancement of their quality of life,” he said.

Spencer used the opening ceremony to announce the agreement reached earlier in the day by the three shareholder governments of regional airline LIAT – Antigua-Barbuda, St Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados - on a commercial alliance with competitor airline Caribbean Star, scheduled to come into effect on February 1. He also used the opportunity to call on other regional governments, especially those in the OECS to join the three shareholders in securing the future of LIAT, the Star of the Caribbean.

The OECS is a sub-regional grouping comprising Antigua-Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts/Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands.