A crisis is evolving in slow motion - by David Jessop
Early in 2007 Caribbean governments will have to take some difficult political decisions. Continuing failure to do so, or to fudge or delay could result at worst in the viability of the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) being brought into question. Bizarrely, what is driving this is an external force: a one-and-a-half year old trade negotiation between the Caribbean and Europe. At face value this is about achieving a new arrangement that will enable Europe and the CSME to more closely integrate their economies. But dig beneath the surface and the problem is much more fundamental.
It is about the fault lines that dissect the region: nationalism; multiple sovereignties; variations in physical size; differing national, regional and international objectives; relative levels of development; and discordant national characteristics.
Unreconciled, they collide with the vision of a single Caribbean.
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