Posted on 07/06/2003 1:29:54 AM PDT by Pikamax
Jul 6, 1:16 AM EDT
Caribbean Leaders Plan EU-Like Economy
By STEVENSON JACOBS Associated Press Writer
MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (AP) -- Caribbean leaders agreed to establish a commission like the European Union to oversee their 15-member, single market economy, allowing the free movement of goods, services and professional workers.
Leaders adopted the plan at the end of the annual summit of the Caribbean Community which ended Saturday. It would create the regional bloc by 2005.
"We have to get a firm foothold in a changing world environment," Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said at the end of the four-day summit in Jamaica's northern Montego Bay resort.
Leaders decided on the bloc after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick refused their appeals for more time to prepare their fragile economies to join the Free Trade Area of the Americas.
Some countries led by Barbados had been pushing for a stronger agreement allowing free movement of all citizens, however Barbadian Prime Minister Owen Arthur acknowledged the region wasn't ready.
The Bahamas, for example, struggling to control an influx of Haitian boat people, has refused to join the single market saying it cannot absorb any more foreign workers.
Arthur said officials will discuss the framework of the union in detail during a November meeting in Barbados.
"We are about to embark on what is for us uncharted waters," Arthur said. "It's very important as we set out on this endeavor that we get things right."
The leaders also agreed to establish a regional security pact to compensate for the loss of millions in aid cut Tuesday by the United Sates to countries that failed to meet a Tuesday deadline for exempting Americans from prosecution before the new U.N. international war crimes tribunal.
The Bush administration fears the court could leave Americans subject to false, politically motivated prosecutions.
In the Caribbean, the U.S. aid was used mainly to fight drug and migrant trafficking. Countries affected are Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Caribbean governments reiterated their support for the international court, with jurisdiction over war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
But Belize said it was planning to grant the exemptions, and the Bahamas said it would ask the United States for a special waiver.
Leaders also agreed to work together to sustain tourism, the lifeblood of many small island-economies, and join forces to fight AIDS, the single biggest killer of Caribbean citizens aged 15-44.
Governments will lobby for cheaper AIDS drugs and conduct a study to determine the economic impact on the region, which has the highest AIDS infection rate after sub-Saharan Africa.
The Caribbean's Germany and France are Trinidad and Jamaica. What has become of past attempts at creating a Caricom? The Caribe has a surfeit of underemployed people, politicians and intellectuals included. None of them suggest free market systems because they are still stuck on Fabian socialist dreams they've inherited from Old Europe.
They all fear its opening and the floodgate of tourism there and the Caribbian vacuum left in its wake
Fidel can;t live forever and now a days he is more significant for his passing than anything in he has done alive
They all know it is just a matter of short time and they can hear the ticking of the clock on the coconut telegraph
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