Leaders to focus on integration

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – When Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meet in Grenada later this month for their inter-sessional summit, they will have before them an agenda that focuses heavily on the priorities and future direction of the regional integration movement, according to a statement issued here by the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat. It said that CARICOM Chairman and host Prime Minister Tillman Thomas met yesterday with the Acting CARICOM Secretary General, Ambassador Lolita Applewhaite to discuss the matters to be raised at the February 25 to 26 meeting. The CARICOM Secretariat said that also in focus at the summit will be “the issue of governance which will carry forward the work undertaken under the tenure of the immediate past Chairman, the Prime Minister of Jamaica, Bruce Golding, and developments in Haiti”. It said that the briefing with Prime Minister Thomas “is the latest interaction between the acting Secretary-General and the Prime Minister since his assumption of duty as Chairman on January 1. “With respect to the Inter-sessional meeting, the Secretariat had been consulting with the Chairman on the agenda following the meeting on January 17 meeting of the Community Council Chaired by Grenada.” It said that “meeting identified the issues for attention and Friday’s meeting followed discussions between a team from the Secretariat and the organising committee of Grenada for the Inter-sessional meeting. Preceding the two-day summit, there will be a meeting of the Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) on February 24 that will be chaired by the Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart, who has lead responsibility for the CSME portfolio in the CARICOM Heads of Government quasi-Cabinet. There will also be a special meeting of the Community Council which is chaired by Grenada on February 24, the Secretariat said. (CMC)