INTEGRATION of the Caribbean into a single market and economy – one of the pillars of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) – is too slow and weak, a top European Union (EU) official has said.
Stefano Manservisi, director-general of the European Commission’s Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development, made this conclusion two days ago during a guest lecture.

The lecture was held at the University of the West Indies’ (UWI) Regional Headquarters at Mona, Jamaica.
“Your process of integration has been too slow, too weak,” Manservisi said.
As recent as last year, CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque said he believes that regional integration is strong and that it provides a solid platform upon which the regional bloc can build its resilience.

However, the EU official, who was confident of what he was saying, went on to add that: “I know what I am talking about; because if there is a region in the world that is able to set up a single market — the biggest in the world — with compromises, with rules, with the participation of everybody, it’s the European Union.”

He went on to explain that the fragmentation in the Region could pose challenges in the context of expanding trade between the Caribbean and the EU.
Concerns have already been raised by governments in the Region about the fate of the Region’s relationship with the EU, given Britain’s exit (BREXIT) from the latter in 2016.
But while the director-general expressed a willingness for the EU to be a strong trading partner with the Caribbean, he maintained that integration of this Region is a crucial component in deepening the relationship between the two regional blocs.
Highlighting the relatively small size of regional economies, Manservisi added that: ” [The]single market has been the most powerful way to be protected from the most negative effects of globalisation”.

But the Caribbean has been on the receiving end of tough moves made by the EU in relation to preferential trade agreements.
The EU official acknowledged at the same event that the discontinuation of preferential trading agreements with the Region for products such as sugar and banana has hurt the Caribbean.

In 2005, the EU slashed sugar prices, which essentially crippled the industry in the Region, including Guyana, which was heavily dependent on sugar. That trend continued with several tough positions taken on other products originating from the Caribbean.
And Manservisi agrees that it was “painful” for the Region to have endured it.
“Of course, it has been painful, it is still painful by the way, and probably we [the EU] could have done things in a different way… in a way more forward-looking. I also think that something better could have been done here in the Caribbean,” he said.