CARICOM leaders agreed on Wednesday night, at the culmination of a three-day summit here, to allow free movement of all categories of people by March of next year.
The agreement does not include Haiti, whose Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, has requested that the country be exempted due to the country’s humanitarian, social, and political crisis.
“Obviously, there are some legal issues that we must investigate.” And we have given our legal personnel some months to investigate those legal concerns and ensure that they can come to us by March 30th to take a definitive conclusion on this,” CARICOM chairman and Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said at a news conference.
“Of course, we have security agreements in place that people can benefit from, but we believe this is the fundamental power of the integration architecture, and at 50, we couldn’t be here today and not speak about the core of individual movement, that is people’s ability to move freely within the community, and I think we would have served the community well by arriving at that decision.”
Skeritt stated that while regional authorities recognized that there might be some difficulties for some, “we are committed to this.”
“This is fantastic news. I feel that the numerous topics we’ve discussed, the number of decisions we’ve made, this is the decision we’ve made at this conference, and I believe the founding fathers are smiling from heaven.”
He stated that, in addition to free movement, the question of contingent rights linked with the initiative will be investigated in order to offer access to primary and emergency health care, as well as basic education, including pre-primary and secondary school.
Previously, under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), which allows for the free movement of goods, persons, skills, and labor throughout the region, CARICOM governments allowed for the free movement of media workers, artistes, musicians, athletes, nurses, teachers, artisans with Caribbean Vocational Qualification, and holders of associate degrees or comparable qualification.
Skerrit also announced that the leaders will meet in Dominica on August 18 and 19 to evaluate a number of issues, including regional governance, and to deepen functional cooperation ahead of their next mid-term meeting in Guyana.
