Review of the Rose Hall Declaration: Provisions on Regional Declaration

• Author: Havelock Brewster
• Profession: Professor
• Pages: 46-60

46 CSME: Genesis and Prognosis

CARICOM Governance Reform

The directions indicated in Section A of the Rose Hall Declaration (July

5, 2003) are in some respects (“mature regionalism”, “automatic resource

transfers”) an advance on the issue of regional governance. Those aspects

move in the direction that the Community should have taken in 1989 when

the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) was inaugurated, since

the latter, taken seriously, could not have proceeded, and cannot now, under

the intergovernmental method.

However, having lost fourteen years, some care should be taken in

plunging headlong, and without democratic consultation, into a European

Union type system which, despite its impressive successes, has encountered

serious frictions and other shortcomings (apart from being enormously costly).

The issues are numerous and complex, and thus it would be strongly advisable

that some time should be spent on the study of them, including understanding

the EU experience (perhaps with EU technical assistance), and on wider and

more open consultation, to better appreciate what it would be desirable and

feasible to adopt and to avoid in the Caribbean context.

The desire to move towards a more mature regionalism exposes a basic

contradiction that gives rise to some scepticism about how realistic that

aspiration is. In Europe, the advance towards supranationalism was propelled

largely by transnational interests (transactors). In most EU countries, 60 to

90 percent of export transactions (goods and services) are derived from intra-

regional commerce. It is even higher in such sectors as telecommunications,

air transport, tourism, technology, and currency transactions. Transnational

interests, therefore, had much to gain from the deepening of integration, and

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6Professor Havelock R. Brewster

REVIEW OF THE ROSE HALL

DECLARATION: PROVISIONS ON

REGIONAL GOVERNANCE