…Dr. Luncheon
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, said that this weekend’s retreat of Caricom Heads will discuss issues of integration and the ceding of political authority to a European Commission, like governance structure, for the more effective implementation of decisions of the secretariat.
This is according to Luncheon at his press conference yesterday. “The Heads accepted the offer put to them by their colleague President Bharrat Jagdeo at the meeting in March to meet in retreat in Guyana in May, 2011. The retreat has been planned and will now take place from May 20 – 21, 2011, at BK International quarries in Mazaruni,” he said.
He said that the main item on the agenda is refocusing and re-energising integration within the Caricom community. “Cabinet, at that meeting on Tuesday, was provided with more details of the organisation of the activity with particular interest being paid to refocusing integration and looking in that context at the feasibility of existing models of integration, and particularly the one that is being applied in the region, addressing its weaknesses,” he said.
He said too that the likely practice of integration in the community and then financial and economic realities and imperatives will likely make up the agenda still to be agreed upon by the Heads.
“Bartica, of course, will be the staging area for the retreat and will accommodate the local and international media. The air and sea lanes would be used to provide for the comfort and to ensure the security for the Heads during the retreat,” he said.
On the weaknesses of the current integration process of the community, the HPS said that these have already been identified. “At our level, it is trade and our ability to enhance inter-community trade, notwithstanding the common tariff; this is one area that reflects some of the weaknesses. The other one, of course, has to do with the lack of an executive sort of commission [to allow for] the ceding of political authority to a model such as the European model, where they would be tasked with implementing decisions of the Secretariat and the Heads. This has been the subject of adverse comments for decades now, about the need to address the ceding of political authority from member states to this super-arching body, a la European model,” the HPS said.