Don’t delay free movement

AFTER LAST year’s manoeuvrings by its political parties to win the votes of CARICOM nationals living there, the decision by Antigua and Barbuda’s government to opt out of fully free movement of labour in the community is surprising.

Hopefully, this backsliding by St John’s is not a precursor to the unravelling of what is a central plank to CARICOM’s (Caribbean Community) transition to a genuine single market and economy and its most profound action in its more than half a century of existence, to which Jamaica recently reiterated its commitment. Faltering at this stage would only reinforce the perception of CARICOM as an organisation that does not implement its agreements and further undermine citizens’ confidence in the regional integration movement.

That would be unfortunate so soon after the euphoria over the community’s leadership in coaxing Haiti’s political and civil society groups to a consensus that might begin to draw the country out of its deep governance and security crisis. That, in part, is why a special meeting of CARICOM leaders on the free movement question, the implementation of which was originally promised for the end of March, will be closely watched.

CARICOM has been working towards its single market and economy (CSME) for three and half decades, since the Grand Anse Declaration of 1989 pledging the move in that direction. The CSME instruments were signed 18 years ago.

FITS AND STARTS

While capital can move with relative ease between those states that are part of the CSME (The Bahamas opted out), the movement of labour has developed in fits and starts.

The community now has a dozen categories of workers, including university graduates, who are allowed to live and work in member states without the need for work permits, once they receive “skills certificates” issued either by their home countries or other participating states.

While there were a comparatively large number of CARICOM nationals residing in Antigua and Barbuda, the eastern Caribbean state, like its neighbour, St Kitts and Nevis, had received a multiyear derogation from the limited free movement regime. However, on the eve of the January 2023 general election, the country’s two major political parties, Prime Minister Gaston Browne’s Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party and the opposition scrambled to be ahead of each other in announcing a planned accession to the existing CARICOM arrangement, as well as how they regularise the status of Caribbean nationals who were in the country illegally.

So when at their summit last July CARICOM heads of government agreed to fully implement free movement this month – for which adjustments have to be made to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas that established the community – it was assumed that Antigua and Barbuda was on board.

But St John’s now says that it will stick to the existing limited regime, rather than sign on to the full freedom of movement.

“We believe that the movement of skills is paramount, as opposed to the movement of all CARICOM nationals …,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s ambassador to CARICOM, Clarence Henry.

According to Dr Henry, acceding to the larger arrangement was likely to overwhelm Antigua and Barbuda’s social services, without support – presumably economic – from regional partners.

MASSIVE INFLOW

St John’s apparently presumes that the expanded regime would lead to a massive inflow of CARICOM citizens. While the specific immigration data is not immediately available, those fears appear not to have materialised with respect to the free movement regime between the seven-member Organisation of East Caribbean States, of which Antigua and Barbuda is a member. None of the seven has been sunk by citizens from one, or many, moving to live and work in the other.

Moreover, shifting emigration dynamics in the region would likely lessen the inflows feared by St John’s. In the past, a significant chunk of the immigration to Antigua and Barbuda by CARICOM nationals was from Guyana and Jamaica.

But Guyana’s recent oil-driven economic boom is slowing the outflow of that country’s citizens. At the same time, Guyana’s changing economic fortunes will likely make it draw to emigrants, while the psychology of free movement would probably encourage Antiguan and Barbudans skills that are not now easily employed at home to seek opportunities elsewhere in the region. Moreover, intra-regional movement labour benefits, rather than hinders economic growth.

In the absence of more, Antigua and Barbuda’s argument seems to be knee-jerk fear, rather than the result of rational analysis. Hopefully, Prime Minister Browne will review the policy.

Hopefully, Antigua and Barbuda’s posture, or that of any other member state of like mind, will, at worst, mean the activation of CARICOM’s dual-track approach to policy implementation, even if the adjustments to the treaty to allow for this is not yet formally ratified. Under that arrangement, member states can move ahead with a policy position if a third of them decided to do so, once the others do not object.

The opinions on this page, except for The Editorial, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Gleaner.