BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC—Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders were unable to sign off on the arrangements to facilitate the free and whole movement of CARICOM nationals by the end of last month, as had been hoped following their summit in Guyana earlier this year.
“At the last virtual heads meeting, it was decided that a series of meetings will take place leading up to the next meeting in Grenada to complete outstanding amendments to the treaty,” informed sources told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) on Tuesday.
At the end of the February summit in Guyana, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who has lead responsibility for the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), told reporters, “We are on target” regarding the free movement of CARICOM nationals.
The regional leaders were due to meet in mid-March for the anticipated sign-off on the arrangements to facilitate CARICOM nationals’ free and whole movement by the end of that month.
The CSME allows for the free movement of goods, skills, labor, and services across the region.
Under the existing free movement of skills regime, persons seeking to work in member countries must obtain a CARICOM Skills Certificate. However, apart from university graduates, artists, musicians, sportspeople, media workers, nurses, teachers, associate degree graduates, and domestic and artisans, all other workers would need a work permit for the country they are entering.
Mottley, who was among regional leaders addressing the end of a summit news conference in Georgetown, told reporters then that the Community is on track to fulfill the
mandate regional leaders gave at their historic 50th-anniversary summit in Trinidad and Tobago in July last year for the free and whole movement of CARICOM nationals from 31 March 2024.
She said then that two outstanding matters must be resolved before the entire free movement can be operationalized.
The intergovernmental task force on free movement referred these two policy issues to heads for settlement. The task force was due to meet on March 7, and CARICOM’s Legal Affairs Committee was due to sign off on the draft decisions the following day.
“Heads of Government will meet on the 15th of March with the hope that we can sign off on the deadline given in Trinidad on the 31st of March for the full freedom of movement of people. As you know, people have the right to move now for six months without question. “What we are talking about is removing that six-month constraint, but we equally have to understand the minimum rights guaranteed to our citizens when they move from one country to the other, and those are being resolved and settled now,” Prime Minister Mottley said.
However, in this negotiation process, Antigua and Barbuda had already signaled that they wished to maintain their use of the current skills regime, which allowed them to focus on addressing labor force demand in the local market.
“The policy is pragmatic and realistic to avoid dislocation of the indigenous population, protecting jobs, and avoiding exacerbating our economic/fiscal challenge,” said Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to CARICOM, Dr. Clarence Henry.
The Bahamas and Bermuda have also indicated that they will not participate in the free movement of people across the region.
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