Upping our CARICOM membership fees to have a voice in regional affairs is worth it, panelists said at the latest Town Hall… although details on what benefits such a voice will bring remain vague
We need to deepen links with CARICOM so we can be ‘in the room where it happens’…
…that quote from the musical Hamilton encapsulates much of Government’s argument for pursuing full membership of CARICOM, and substantially upping our fees being paid to the Caribbean economic body.
At the latest Town Hall presentation in St George’s on Tuesday, former PLP MP Michael Scott said our current associate membership leaves us unable to shape regional policy.
“We cannot vote. We are excluded from discussions” he said. “Our aspirations are to participate around the table.”
Home Affairs Minister Alexa Lightbourne and Erica Smith, the BEDC’s Executive Director, said global instability is prompting us to create more regional partnerships now, for potential benefit in the future.
“There is a shifting time in our world that requires friendships before you need them”, Minister Lightbourne said.
Ms Smith added, “we’re influenced by British history, we’re influenced by our access to the United States… but could regionalism in the Caribbean provide us benefits, stability…?”
If and how Bermuda will definitively benefit from being a part of CARICOM policy meetings is still not clear, even after the latest public Town Hall.
The Green Paper published by Government highlights discussions on shipping routes and food production as places where Bermuda could be given a voice through full membership, but it remains to be seen how Bermuda would both contribute and/or benefit.
As for the increase in fees, which could shoot up to $2.28 million annually according to the Green Paper, Minister Lightbourne said that figure is still up for negotiation because, as a British Overseas Territory, we cannot fully engage with all aspects of full CARICOM membership.
“It is a bespoke relationship that we’re seeking to evolve”, she said, “because we would not be able to concede to all of the current treaty provisions…
“…and so that number was factually put out there to inform based on the current calculation that the Secretariat uses, but it does not contemplate the negotiations and the other things that must ensue prior, that would make that figure final.”
Reading the room, public opinion on CARICOM is heavily divided.
An attendee said this is not the time to make such a move to full membership, while another said a referendum is the best way for Government to truly represent the people’s interests on this matter.
One commenter said Government should do “whatever it takes” to become full members, and another said resistance to CARICOM is rooted in racism.
Moderator Malika Cartwright closed out the meeting by saying that Bermuda should no longer be sitting at the ‘kiddie table’ in CARICOM…
“Do we want to take a seat among our own people”, she said, “or do we want to keep explaining from outside the room, or at the ‘kid’s table’ is the way that I seem to see it sometimes…
“I don’t want to tell my daughter why we were never there… and all of us have asked previous generations why they didn’t do something, and why it’s been left to us to do.”
