Prime Minister Bruce Golding

NASSAU, The Bahamas, CMC - Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding says his country has no interest in a political union with any of the member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

"We are not open for those discussions, but we have no objection to those countries who want to enter into those discussions," Golding told journalists here Saturday, the final day of the 19th Inter-sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government.

Golding was responding to the March 1 announcement which followed a meeting between Trinidad's Prime Minister's Patrick Manning and his St. Vincent counterpart Dr. Ralph Gonsalves of a possible union between their two countries which would also include Grenada and St. Lucia.

Gonsalves said then that former St. Lucia Prime Minister Dr. Vaughan Lewis and Trinidadian diplomat Dr. Cuthbert Joseph would be approached to undertake the feasibility study on the proposed union.

"What we would hope for is that it (the proposed union) would be pursued in such a way that would be harmonious with the principles of CARICOM, that it wouldn't be in place of CARICOM," Golding said.

He conceded that it was "quite possible in the same way that you have Antigua and Barbuda being a member of CARICOM and you have St. Vincent and the Grenadines and you have Trinidad and Tobago, if you had Trinidad and St. Lucia and St. Vincent being a member of CARICOM that's fine".

In reiterating his government's commitment to regional integration, Golding said "I have deliberately sought to demonstrate since becoming Prime Minister that we are team players, we are part of that team; we want to play our part in advancing the interest of the region.

"We remain open to discussions that would seek to expand the capacity of the single market. We have expressed our reservations about the single economy; not reservation based on disagreement based on what is being proposed, but simply indicating that it's going to be considerably difficult to establish a single economic space unless you have a single set of economic policies

– macro economic policies, monetary policies, fiscal policy, debt management policy, possibly a single currency.

"It is going to be extremely difficult to do that without a political structure and once you get there, that is when we have to get off that because we are under a mandate that we are not going there".

CMC/db/vd/2008