The causes of the awakening are clear namely the deepening regional awareness of its political and economic vulnerabilities as shown in current difficulties in the relationship with the US and in the uncertain outcomes of the trade negotiations, the closely associated erosion of traditional national economic structures, the perception of the fragilities of the regional economy and so on. The consequent uneasiness has been translated into a sustained call for revision and change in Caricom. Foremost in this call for new thinking is Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, a visionary in the mould of an earlier leadership. It was he who chaired the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Caricom Governance whose report provided the basis for much of the Rose Hall Declaration on Regional Governance and Integrated Development. In this declaration the Heads of Government agreed inter alia in principle to:

“The establishment of a Caricom Commission or other executive mechanism whose purpose will be to facilitate the deepening of regional integration in the areas of responsibility specified (by Heads of Government). The Commission’s function will be to exercise full time executive responsibility for furthering implementation of Community decisions in such areas as well as to initiate proposals for community action in any such areas. The functions of the Commission will relate to the Caricom Single Market and Economy and such other areas of the integration process as the Conference of Heads may from time to time determine.”

It is this proposal for a Commission which has captured the widest interest. The reason why is not hard to find. The European Union continues to be seen as the “model” for regional integration and in the case of the E.U. it is generally agreed that it is the European Commission (EC) which is the engine of the integration process and which is responsible for the rapid development of the EU. The devising of the EC was a stroke of political genius by the architects of the European Community, as it then was. It is a hybrid institution which is partly political and partly bureaucratic. It is not just a super-secretariat as it must remain wholly responsive to political realities. On the other hand it is not wholly political as it separates off the commitments to integration from the day to day political pressures in member states. It is this latter attribute which has enabled the European Commission to implement decisions rapidly and effectively.

It is the domestic pressures in Member States which have hindered the implementation of decisions taken at the Caricom regional level. And it is the failure to implement decisions which touch the lives of Caricom citizens which have given Caricom a bad image as no more than a talkshop. Caricom heads have themselves been long aware of this institutional deficit or gap in Caricom which leads to lack of implementation of decisions. Thus at the Inter-sessional Meeting in March 1999 in Suriname, Heads of Government stated:

“..... it was generally acknowledged that central to the problem of Caribbean integration, was the fact that the method and structure of Governance of the Community was inadequate for spearheading and guiding a regional integration movement. Heads of Government recognised that at the heart of the problem was the absence of any central executive/decision making authority, capable of acting on behalf of Member States within the limits of the Treaty.”

Yet when Sir Shridath Ramphal, in his capacity as Chairman of the West Indian Commission, recommended the establishment of a Caribbean Commission (which it should be noted was somewhat similar to that now proposed in the Rose Hall declaration) it was rejected as Vaughan Lewis records, “not only by a majority of the political directorate but also by the technocratic leadership of the Caricom Secretariat, who tended to see it as leading to the creation of a dual-headed arrangement with a blurred division of roles and labour”.

Ramphal has recently explained in a BBC Caribbean Report that the Commission proposal was not so much rejected as deferred while the Bureau arrangement was tried. The Commission idea, like ideas whose time have come, remained current especially among the OECS States. Thus in October 2002 the OECS Authority in the context of its proposed Economic Union agreed “that creation of a Commission System along the lines of the European Union should be examined..”

While the time for the implementation of the proposal for a Commission may have come, it is not clear in the decisions of the Summit as outlined in the Rose Hall Declaration how the Commission will be made operational and effective, how in short it will enforce as envisaged the implementation of Community decisions.

In the case of the European Union, the European Commission has the power to enact, after wide and sustained consultation, regulations which “automatically” become part of the laws of E.U. member states. Indeed the EU Commission law takes precedence over national law. Prime Minister Lester Bird envisages a somewhat similar situation for the Caribbean Commission. In his book “Antigua Vision: Caribbean Reality” (London Hansib 2002) he argues that:

“A Caribbean Community Commission should be given real power to operate in prescribed areas and to execute policy without the need for recourse to national parliaments once decisions have been reached by plenipotentiaries appointed by governments to be the Governing Council of the Commission”.

The crucial question will be how the findings and work of the Commission in implementing Community decisions become enforceable within each Caricom Member State. Ramphal’s West Indian Commission had recognised that as the Caribbean Commission will not have supra-national power “it becomes both more necessary and more complicated to devise appropriate arrangements for uniform and expeditious implementation”. Ramphal proposed that the (further) revised Treaty of Chaguaramas should recognise the evolution of a body of Community law deriving from decisions of Caricom Heads of Government and other instrumentalities taken in pursuance of the Treaty.

The Rose Hall Declaration has a similar approach. It envisages “the development of a system of mature regionalism in which critical policy decisions of the Community taken by Heads of Government or by other Organs of the Community will have the force of law throughout the region as a result of the operation of domestic legislation and the Treaty of Chaguaramas appropriately revised and the authority of the Caribbean Court of Justice in its original jurisdiction - taking in account the constitutional provisions of member states.”

Deeply aware of the sensitivities of Caricom governments, Ramphal saw the role of the Commission as essentially advisory/ facilitative. On the other hand the Rose Hall Declaration goes much further and conceives the Commission as having executive power. Hence the task of formulating appropriate provisions including treaty and national constitutional amendments will encounter even more difficulties than those foreseen in Ramphal’s report.

The appointment of the Commission and its effective functioning will have important implications for Guyana, especially for farmers and manufacturers, for sugar and rice and other exports to the increasingly important Caricom market. Not so long ago Guyana’s rice producers complained that despite treaty commitments they were being denied parts of the Caricom market. At that time it was explained that little could be done to help them as there were no enforcement provisions in the Caricom Treaty. It is therefore relevant that in another section of the Rose Hall Declaration the Heads of Government reiterated their “commitment to collaborate more effectively through inter alia the stimulation of increased production, the strengthening of joint research activities, the pursuit within a regional context of additional processing of agricultural raw materials including sugar in particular, the promotion of increased agricultural trade intra-regionally and extra-regionally and to work towards greater food security within the region.”

All of which is of vital interest to Guyana perhaps moreso than is the case with any other Caricom State. Hence Guyana’s compelling interest in the implementation of Caricom decisions and the early establishment of the Commission.

The proposals for the proposed Commissions are to be further elaborated by the same Prime Ministerial Committee chaired by Prime Minister Gonsalves assisted by a technical group. Its report is to be presented at a Special Summit in November. It is a matter of vital national interest that Guyana should participate in the work of that Technical Group.