Former St Lucia PM to head team to look into OECS and Trinidad & Tobago 'union'
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| Published on Friday, August 22, 2008 |
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By Oscar Ramjeet
Caribbean Net News Special Correspondent
Email: oscar@caribbeannetnews.com
PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: Former St Lucia Prime Minister, Vaughn Lewis, who was also the Secretary General of the OECS, has been given the mandate "to study the issues and to study the modalities of how the countries should proceed concerning the new initiative of Trinidad and Tobago joining with three OECS countries to join the sub-region.”
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning added that Lewis’s task is to advise the countries as regards to "what steps we should take, what is the arrangement so that we can come to a common position, of which we hope to do by December 2008, then we are off and running."
Manning made the announcement after he had a meeting with the Dominica Cabinet on Wednesday. He also told newsmen that a decision was also taken at the meeting of leaders in Port of Spain to sensitise the peoples of the region on this latest integration thrust.
Manning and Grenada Prime Minister Tillman Thomas were in Dominica to brief Dominica's cabinet on the new initiative following the August 14 agreement signed by the Prime Ministers of the twin island Republic, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines and St Lucia, which commits Trinidad and Tobago to join the OECS and become part of the process leading to an economic union among OECS countries by 2011.
The agreement signed in Port of Spain also stipulates that the four countries will go one step further and become part of a political union by 2013. The agreement has to be ratified by December 31, 2008. Countries in the region wishing to be a part of this process can sign the agreement and ratify it by December 31, 2008.
Since the collapse of the West Indian Federation in 1961, there have been several efforts and initiatives in the Caribbean aimed at economic and political union. However, Manning is of the opinion that the circumstances now are different compared to earlier efforts aimed at integration.
He said, "What is different on this occasion from other occasions is the political will. We have a number of prime ministers in office in the Caribbean now, who against the background of our experience over the many years and experiences elsewhere in the world have now come to the conclusion that either we integrate or we disintegrate."
All over the world countries are integrating, Manning stressed. | | | | Reads : 465 |
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