BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, August 5, 2010 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of St. Kitts & Nevis) - The enterprise of regional integration has been a hot topic since the recent signing of the Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Economic Union on 18th June 2010…and rightly so. The deepening of integration amongst the Member States of our sub-region, particularly those with Full Member status, namely, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Christopher and Nevis, St. Lucia, Montserrat and St. Vincent and Grenadines, is an exciting and timely development of which we should all be exceptionally proud.
Kittitians and Nevisians have good reason to celebrate and to claim special ownership of this historic moment. After all, not only is the Treaty Establishing Economic Union, as well as its predecessor, named after the historic and beautiful Basseterre, but St. Kitts and Nevis has also been the site at which many of the seminal steps towards OECS integration have been taken by our leaders. It was here that the first Treaty was signed in 1981, some twenty-nine years ago and it was here that the Declaration of Intent to enter into Economic Union was signed in 2006, as well as where, in December 2009, the Revised Treaty was initialled to authenticate our leaders’ commitment to the process.
As citizens of a nation that has been at the vanguard of regional integration, it is important that we continue to lead the way by availing ourselves of every opportunity to learn about the meaning and significance of the OECS Economic Union concept and how all of us can affect the process so that each can be an active participant rather than a spectator in this noble enterprise.
In a recent commentary, one criticism that was levied at our region’s leaders is that Caribbean integration has been a “Prime-ministerial, paper-based and people-less” process. Indeed, one of the first facts to learn about the Revised Treaty is that even as it entails complex, legalistic and highly technical elements that will have to be delicately parsed and imparted to the public, it also involves the institutionalisation of mechanisms to bridge the “democracy deficit” that has long plagued the regional integration movement at both the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) and OECS levels.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of St. Kitts and Nevis, as the national focal point on OECS matters, is committed to finding innovative, stimulating and effective ways to educate the cross-section of public and private interests in our society and to build awareness as to the benefits to be derived from deeper integration.
This article is the introduction to a weekly series issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which will seek to answer the pressing and fundamental questions relating to the Economic Union process, its origins, history, rationale, features and impacts.
This will be part of a public awareness programme that will be intensified over the coming months to ensure that our students, business persons, workers – all and sundry – would be fully seized of the main elements of “Economic Union” as well as be updated on the permanent structures that are being put in place by our Government to ensure that the process remains open, transparent and consultative. Our aim is to foster a sense of connectedness with and ownership of the OECS integration movement so that it can be driven not just for the people but by the people.
Further to this aim, new institutions - namely, the OECS Commission and the OECS Assembly - will become operational when the Treaty is ratified and comes into effect by the 21st January, 2011. Not only will these institutions lock in mechanisms for greater consultation, collaboration and coordination of regional policies between and among national and regional technocrats, but most importantly and for the very first time, the meaningful involvement and engagement of Parliamentary representatives, including Opposition members, in the development of policy initiatives will be allowed. All debates and deliberations of the OECS Assembly are to be broadcast across the Economic Union area.
To ensure that the interests St. Kitts and Nevis are optimally safeguarded, the input of the public, the Federal Cabinet, and the Federal House of Assembly will be enlisted at every step of the policy cycle, from the development to implementation phase.
As such, it is critical that we all become savvy citizens of the OECS in order to fully effectuate Economic Union as an imperative strategy in fulfilling the development potential of our region. This series on the OECS Economic Union endeavours to begin the conversations that would steer us along this path.
Until next time, please go to the website of the OECS Secretariat at www.oecs.org to access the following documents (scroll down to “Featured Documents”):
• Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the OECS Economic Union
• Feature Address of the Chairman of the OECS, Dr. Denzil Douglas at the Signing
Ceremony of the Revised Treaty
• Remarks by Dr. Len Ishmael, Director General of the OECS at the Signing
Ceremony of the Revised Treaty
• “Economic Union Treaty: FAQs”
For more information on the overall vision behind regional integration, you will find a tremendous resource in the book Time for Action: Report of the West Indian Commission (1992).
