(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) His Excellency Bharrat Jagdeo, President of the Republic of Guyana and Incoming Chairman of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), said Friday that the regional integration movement remained on course and called on Member States to recommit to integration.
He gave this reassurance at a media briefing ahead of the Thirtieth Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM, scheduled for 2-4 July, 2009, in Georgetown, Guyana. The media briefing was held at the Headquarters of the CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown.
President Jagdeo, who is also the Lead Head of Government with responsibility for Agriculture in CARICOM’s Quasi Cabinet, said that in light of the anxieties of the fragility of the regional integration movement, it was critical to affirm that “the integration movement is as strong as ever before.”
He acknowledged that the Community was grappling with “unprecedented challenges”, many of which were induced by the global financial and economic crisis, but pointed out that the institutional mechanisms set up to guide CARICOM through this period, must be allowed to work.
The President emphasised that the CARICOM Heads of Government had a “deep desire” to work together to achieve the objectives of the integration movement towards the development of a better Community for all.
The differences of opinions which were inevitable wherever diversity existed, should not be used as positive indicators of disunity, he argued.
“Those differences of opinion on various issues are elevated to the level of the disintegration of the movement and that is a contention that I cannot agree with,” President Jagdeo stressed.
“We have made significant progress that individual Member States could not have made by themselves,” President Jagdeo said, adding that regional advocacy on critical issues such as climate change and the reform of the global financial systems and the strides made in education were among the examples that justified the relevance of the integration movement.
In his remarks, CARICOM Secretary-General, His Excellency Edwin Carrington fully endorsed President Jagdeo’s affirmations of the strength of the Community.
“Integration has bumps and it has smooth freeways. It is unfortunate when the slightest difficulty is interpreted as the final end for the integration process,” the Secretary-General Carrington said.
Climate change, agriculture, and the deleterious effects of the global financial and economic crises on tourism in the Region, are among the weighty issues that could entail lengthy discussions at the upcoming Heads of Government Meeting, the President said.
