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THE BENEFITS OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION
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HISTORY
ECONOMICS
GEOGRAPHY
SOCIOLOGY
Regional Integration: Building Together
WHAT IS REGIONAL INTEGRATION?
The term integration is generally regarded as a process by which different independent units are brought together or united to form a new larger unit. The subject of Integrated Science, taught in Secondary schools and Universities, is an appropriate illustration of the concept of integration. Elements of the conventional science subjects like Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics which are traditionally taught separately, are combined or fused into a single new subject called Integrated Science. In the same way that Integrated Science is a combination of several science subjects, countries can unite various aspects of their functions of government to create a single new system. When two or more countries, in the same geographical region, come together for the common purpose of cooperating in or uniting aspects of their functions of government – that is, aspects of their political, economic, security or social duties for example – and by so doing form a single new system, they become engaged in a process of regional integration. The purpose for which these countries integrate will determine the type of regional integration. Regional integration is therefore a method of uniting a region.
EXAMPLES OF REGION INTEGRATION
Countries can integrate their economies, or elements of their economies. For example, in 1952, six countries in Europe – France, West Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg came together to form the European Coal and Steel Community – ECSC – to integrate their coal and steel industries. Countries can come together in other functions of government like education. In 1948, the ten territories of the then British West Indies (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts–Nevis–Anguilla, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago) established the University College of the West Indies for cooperation in tertiary education – one University to serve all the Member States. This integration of education has continued at the level of secondary schools with the creation of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) in 1972 – one regional body formed by all the Caribbean governments to organise and regulate secondary school leaving examinations.
Countries can also integrate politically. Political integration occurs when two or more countries or states become joined together by transferring all or part of their constitutional authority to a new unit to form a larger new state – a political union. In 1867, four British North American colonies - (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Upper Canada and Lower Canada) - each with a separate identity, united to form one country – Canada. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and North Ireland is a political union of four countries – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. When countries embark on a process of regional integration, they agree to limit their constitutional authority or responsibility in the functions they are integrating.
They then: • Either transfer part or all of that authority to a regional institution which will be responsible for managing and taking decisions in those policy areas that they have integrated. • Or they come together in a regional organisation through which they will jointly make decisions in those functions or subjects they have agreed to integrate.
The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States – OECS – is an example of a regional integration organisation. It was formed on 18 June 1981, by Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, to promote cooperation among the Member States at the regional and international levels, to promote unity and solidarity among the Member States and to defend their sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence, to assist the Member States in the realisation of their obligations to the international community and to promote economic integration among the Member States.
Other examples of regional cooperation organisations are the Caribbean Community – CARICOM; the European Union – the EU; the Economic Community of West African States – ECOWAS; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – ASEAN; South African Development Community – SADC; the Southern Common Market – MERCOSUR.
Regional Integration: Building Together
THE BENEFITS OF REGIONAL INTEGRATION
WHY DO COUNTRIES EMBARK ON REGIONAL INTEGRATION?
Regional integration is a process of uniting a region so that the countries of the region can work together for their common advancement. Regional integration allows the participating states to perform functions that can be more effectively carried out if they are undertaken together rather than by individual states. Joint or cooperative action by a group of states, through regional integration, allows these states to provide common services to their citizens with greater efficiency and at reduced costs since their resources are pooled.
When countries embark on regional economic integration, they create a larger market or economic space for the production and sale of the goods and services they produce and for the movement of other resources like capital and their people. This larger market and the free circulation of goods and other economic resources of the countries within it, results in greater trade, business, and economic opportunities in the countries and in their general economic advancement. Countries that are engaged in regional integration arrangements obtain a wider, more diverse pool of physical and human resources with which to operate their economies and societies. In the Preamble to the 1981 Treaty of Basseterre establishing the OECS, the Governments of the participating countries, confirmed why countries generally pursue regional integration when they affirmed, “their determination to achieve economic and social development for their peoples” and to “satisfy the legitimate aspirations of their peoples for development and progress.” Countries therefore embark on regional integration because, essentially, regional integration is about working and building together for the good of all and to the disadvantage of none.
A strong regional integration grouping leads to peace and stability between the Member countries, provides them with greater visibility and weight internationally as they face the world as one, rather than speaking and negotiating as separate, weaker voices. As a regional group they are better able to compete internationally.
History of the OECS
THE ORIGINS OF THE OECS
The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) emerged out of efforts from 1958 to 1981 to create a viable integration arrangement for the British West Indian islands. In 1958, the then British colonies of Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts–Nevis–Anguilla, Montserrat, Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, came together to form the West Indies Federation (WIF) which resulted in a single federal government - to manage matters of common interest to the colonies. The Federal Government was headed by a Prime Minister, Grantley Adams, the Premier of Barbados, with Ministers drawn from the various colonies.
At the same time, each colony had its own internal government headed by a Chief Minister or Premier. The capital of the Federation was in Chaguaramas, Trinidad and Tobago. Although the West Indies Federation had been the result of a four decades old struggle by West Indians for a federal union and self-government, the Federation collapsed in 1962, for a variety of reasons, but largely as a result of differences between the leaders of the colonies and in particular the larger colonies of Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago and the weakness of the federal government itself. The disintegration was put in motion when Jamaica’s Premier Norman Manley held a referendum on 19 September 1961 to decide whether Jamaica should remain in the West Indies Federation. The people of Jamaica voted against remaining in the Federation leading to its withdrawal. Jamaica would later seek and gain independence from Great Britain. Following Jamaica’s withdrawal, Trinidad and Tobago’s Premier Dr. Eric Williams also took the colony of Trinidad and Tobago out of the West Indies Federation and on 31 May 1962, the Federation of the West Indies was dissolved. Both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago then gained independence from Great Britain in August 1962.
The other islands: Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St. Kitts–Nevis–Anguilla, Saint Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines – that became known as the “Little Eight”, sought to establish a new Federation among themselves.
For three years, in talks with the British Government and at their own regional meetings, the leaders of these colonies through a body known as the Regional Council of Ministers, negotiated the form, structure and financing of the proposed Little Eight Federation. However, these negotiations were unsuccessful and in 1965 Barbados withdrew from the discussions and from the Regional Council of Ministers to be granted independence from Great Britain in November 1966. The seven remaining colonies, which were unable to proceed to independence at the time, decided to continue to meet regularly and work together in a number of common areas and for which joint action would be more beneficial to them. They created a new regional council for this joint approach. Having been granted a novel constitutional status of Associated States of Great Britain in 1967, the regional council was renamed the West Indies Associated States Council of Ministers (WISA Council).
It was established on 21 September 1966 and comprised the Heads of Government of each colony. Each Head of Government was to become Chairman of the Council for one year on a rotational basis. The Council had a Secretariat based in Castries, Saint Lucia with an Executive Secretary who was assisted by an Executive Officer.
Although there was no formal agreement (a document signed by the governments) for its establishment, the WISA Council of Ministers was responsible for, among other things, joint overseas missions in the UK and Canada; cooperation in civil aviation matters, the Judiciary - the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court was formed; and a common currency managed by the East Caribbean Currency Authority.The WISA Council met at least once a year and took decisions in the interests of the group as a whole. In 1968, the WISA Council of Ministers decided to create an economic integration organisation – the East Caribbean Common Market (ECCM).
The ECCM Agreement was signed on 11 June 1968 in Grenada. According to its Preamble, it was formed because the Governments were “determined to establish the foundation of a closer union among the peoples of the East Caribbean” and were “resolved to ensure by common action economic and social development of their countries by eliminating the barriers which divide them.” The ECCM was governed by a Council of Ministers (Ministers responsible for trade matters) and its Secretariat, with an Executive Secretary in charge, was based in Antigua and Barbuda. The regional integration process in the Eastern Caribbean therefore then comprised two institutions – the WISA Council of Ministers and the ECCM.
Ten years after they became States in Association with Great Britain, the Eastern Caribbean islands began proceeding to independence from Great Britain. The leaders of the WISA Council decided that after independence, the islands should be represented jointly overseas and speak with one voice in international affairs. It was agreed that in order to achieve this, a regional organisation, more formal and stronger than the WISA Council, should be established to further advance regional integration. On 18 June 1981, in Basseterre, the capital of Saint Kitts and Nevis, the WISA Council members signed the Treaty of Basseterre that integrated the informal WISA Council of Ministers and the ECCM into the new organisation – the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States – OECS.
History of the OECS
With the OECS, the areas of integration among the participating countries were broadened to include mutual defence and security; foreign policy harmonisation, and joint overseas representation; tertiary education; external economic relations; external transportation; maritime matters; tourism; currency and central banking; training in public administration and management; and scientific, technical and cultural cooperation. These were in addition to the existing economic integration arrangement of the ECCM (the ECCM agreement became a part of the Treaty of Basseterre); the common Judiciary with the West Indies Associated States Supreme Court that was renamed the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC); and the Directorate of Civil Aviation. Later, new areas like sports and the joint purchasing of pharmaceuticals through the Eastern Caribbean Drug Service - later called the Pharmaceutical Procurement Service (PPS) – were added.
The functions of the OECS were to be carried out through five institutions of the Organisation. ● The Authority of Heads of Government of the Member
States was made up of the Prime Ministers/ Chief Ministers of each State. It was the supreme policy making institution of the Organisation. The Foreign Affairs Committee consisting of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of each Member State. It was responsible for the development of the foreign policy of the Organisation.
• The Defence and Security Committee consisting of
Ministers for Defence and Security of each Member
State. It was responsible for coordinating collective defence and the preservation of peace and security against external attacks and developing ties between the Member States in defence and security matters.
• The Economic Affairs Committee was made up of Ministers appointed to the Committee by their respective Governments and was responsible for the economic integration arrangements of the ECCM. It took over the functions of the Council of Ministers of the ECCM.
• The Central Secretariat led by a Director General with supporting staff was responsible for the general administration of the Organisation.
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The establishment of the OECS was a deepening of Eastern Caribbean regional integration and in July 2001, the Heads of Government of the OECS moved to a further deepening and consolidation of the movement with the decision to form an economic union among the seven Full Member States.
An economic union is a higher form of economic integration than a common market - what the ECCM was supposed to be.
There are four levels of economic integration: 1. A Free Trade Area – a group of countries allow the goods they produce domestically to be traded among themselves without tariffs or customs duties being imposed on these goods.
2. A Customs Union – allows for the free trade in domestically produced goods and for the countries to adopt a common customs tariff/common external tariff on goods imported from countries outside their grouping.
3. A Common Market – allows for the free trade in goods as well as the free movement of capital, labour, and services within the grouping.
4. An Economic Union – allows for the free movement of goods, labour, capital and services and for the harmonisation of certain social, economic and financial policies, including fiscal and monetary policies and a common currency. To create the economic union, the Treaty of Basseterre, through which the OECS was founded, was revised to provide for an economic union. In the revised treaty, the Protocol of Eastern Caribbean Economic Union replaces the ECCM Agreement of the Original Treaty.
History of the OECS
On 18 June 2010, the Revised Treaty of Basseterre (RTB), setting up the OECS economic union, was signed in Saint Lucia by the Member States and the Treaty came into effect in January 2011. There are many differences between the Revised Treaty of Basseterre and the Original Treaty. First, the Revised Treaty provides for new organs and institutions for the Organisation.
The principal organs of the OECS under the Revised
Treaty of Basseterre are: • The Authority of Heads of Government of the Member
States - the supreme policy making body.
• The Council of Ministers comprising of Ministers appointed to the Council by their Governments and responsible for recommending to the Authority Acts of the Organisation and regulations for the implementation of these Acts.
• The OECS Assembly made up of representatives of the elected members of the Houses of Parliament and Legislatures of the Member States. Each independent Member State of the Organisation elects five members of its Parliament to the Assembly while Non-Independent States are entitled to three members. The representatives are to come from both Government and Opposition political parties in proportion to their representation in their respective Parliaments. Membership of the Assembly is for two
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years. The Assembly considers matters referred to it by the Authority.
• The Economic Affairs Council consisting of Ministers appointed to the Council by their respective
Governments with these Ministers having responsibility for the functioning of the Protocol of Eastern Caribbean
Economic Union.
• The OECS Commission led by the Director General with one Commissioner of Ambassadorial rank from each
Member country. The Commission provides secretariat services to the Organs of the Organisation.
The Revised Treaty also formally incorporates three institutions into the Organisation – The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank (ECCB) and the Eastern Caribbean Civil Aviation Authority (ECCAA). While these institutions have always been part of the regional integration arrangements, they were not recognised in the Original Treaty of Basseterre as agencies of the OECS integration system. (See opposite for OECS Structure).
However, the fundamental difference between the Revised and the Original Treaty of Basseterre lies in the provisions of the Revised Treaty for enforcing the implementation of the decisions of the Authority and the Council of Ministers. Under the Original Treaty of Basseterre, decisions taken by the Heads of Government were not always implemented in the Member States in a timely manner and this retarded the advancement of integration and prevented the people from enjoying its benefits. To overcome noncompliance with decisions, under the Revised Treaty, the independent Member States agreed to enact legislation to transfer to the Organisation the power to legislate in a number of areas set out in the Treaty. In other words, once the Heads of Government in the meetings of the Authority or the Council of Ministers, decide on a course of action or a policy, that policy decision can become law in the relevant Member States and such Member States are legally bound to implement it. Through the Revised Treaty, the countries therefore agreed to pool their constitutional authority or their sovereignties in selected key policy areas.
These are:
The common market including customs union
Monetary policy
Trade policy
Maritime jurisdiction and maritime boundaries
Civil aviation
Common commercial policy
Environmental policy
Immigration
By giving the Organisation the legal authority to make decisions and carry out certain actions on behalf of its members, the Governments of the OECS demonstrated their determination that the people of the region should benefit from regional integration.
OECS Membership
MEMBERSHIP OF THE ORGANISATION
In 1981 the OECS was formed by the seven countries which were members of the WISA Council of Ministers – Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. They were full members of the Organisation, having the right to be its supreme policy makers. Under the 2010 Revised Treaty, they continued to be full members but more specifically they were signatories to the Protocol establishing the Eastern Caribbean Economic Union and are called Protocol Member States. The 1981 Treaty also provided for Associate Membership of the OECS. According to the Treaty, the rights and obligations of the Associate Members are determined by the Authority of Heads of Government. Generally, Associate Members participate in meetings of the organisation but are not formally part of the decision-making by the Authority. The British Virgin Islands became an Associate Member of the OECS on 22 November 1984 and Anguilla, an Associate Member on 24 May 1998, bringing the total membership to nine states.
The 2010 Revised Treaty of Basseterre retained the original Treaty provisions for Associate Membership of the organisation and under article 3.2 Anguilla and the British Virgin Islands are listed as continuing to be Associate Members; while this allows them full participation in the organisation’s activities as determined by the Authority, they are not members of the Protocol of Eastern Caribbean Economic Union. A decade and a half after admitting its ninth member, the Organisation expanded when the French overseas department of Martinique became an Associate Member of the OECS on 4 February 2015. This was a historic milestone as it was the first time that a French Caribbean territory had joined a regional intergovernmental organisation. The French connection was further strengthened when another French Caribbean overseas department - Guadeloupe - became an Associate Member of the OECS on 14 March 2019. With the inclusion of Martinique and Guadeloupe, the OECS is an eleven-member organisation that encompasses almost the entire chain of Eastern Caribbean islands, commencing from the British Virgin Islands in the north-eastern Caribbean through to Grenada in the south.
The momentousness of the admission of Martinique and Guadeloupe to the OECS was acknowledged by Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in his address as Chairman of the OECS Authority at the Special Meeting of the Authority, on 14 March 2019 in Guadeloupe, held on the occasion of Guadeloupe’s Accession to Associate Membership of the OECS. Dr. Gonsalves declared: “Centuries of European colonial rivalries in the Caribbean have contributed to the fracturing of our countries in differing linguistic groups and a contrived island separateness. Yet, within and arising from the rivalries, contradictions, and separations are the very seeds which predispose our territories to a greater and more perfect union, as the circumstances admit … The maturation of the OECS embraces practically the variable geometry of integration as made manifest in its welcoming of Martinique and Guadeloupe to associate membership”
Notes 1. The British Virgin Islands and Anguilla have not yet signed the Revised Treaty of Basseterre.
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KEY WORDS FOR FURTHER REFERENCE
▪ The West Indies Federation ▪ Referendum ▪ Norman Manley ▪ Eric Williams ▪ Associated State ▪ French Overseas Department
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The constitutional development of the British colonies of the Windward and Leeward Islands post the failed West Indies Federation of 1958-1962, was the catalyst that moved them to new regional cooperation arrangements in 1967. However, these islands of the Eastern Caribbean, that formed the OECS in 1981, and those that have joined it since then, are all natural partners for regional integration. At first, their geography appears to contradict this “naturalness”; for they are seemingly distant from each other – islands spread across the Eastern Caribbean Sea in an arc that commences from the British Virgin Islands in the North to Grenada in the south. In reality they are in close proximity to each other. The air travel distance (the shortest distance as the crow flies) from the British Virgin Islands to Grenada is 767 kilometres or 477 miles. It is estimated that an airplane travelling at an average speed of 560 miles would arrive in the British Virgin Islands from Grenada in 51mins.
Historically, the islands have been classified into two geographical groups as a result of the pattern of the voyages of the European sailing ships that came to the Caribbean from the fifteenth century onwards. These ships, particularly slave ships, depended on the trans-Atlantic currents and winds to push them from the West African coast to the Caribbean; these winds blow from east to west and so the islands, which were first encountered in the Caribbean due to these trade winds, were called the Windward Islands, and lay in the direction from which the wind was blowing. These were: Dominica, Martinique, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada.
Those islands that were downward or downwind or away from the wind, were called the Leeward Islands and were Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, the Virgin Islands as well as St. Martin, St. Eustatius, and Saba.
