Eastern Caribbean Puts Common Passport Plan on Hold

Eastern Caribbean States put off the implementation of a common passport as they wait for CARICOM to get the initiative going, this as part of the regional economic integration program its leaders have been advocating for a number of years now.

The nine members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) –all full-fledged members of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as well- expected to come up with a common passport for their residents to move more freely around their tiny island nations.

However, CARICOM heads of states recently agreed to give their organization more time to work out all possible kinks before implementing the common passport for all fifteen member states.

Now the CARICOM’s executive branch will have six more months to sketch out a final passport project. Its members, though, warned this week that if no headway in the negotiations is made, then the OECS will get the green light to produce a common travel document for its own member states.

The unified passport is a necessary step prior to the establishment of a Common Caribbean Market, an institution that will be in charge of representing the whole region in their trade relations with the rest of the world.

The OECS is made up of Antigua & Barbuda, Dominique, Granada, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and St. Lucia, plus Anguila and the British Virgin Islands as non-permanent members.

CARICOM is a much broader organization that comprises the entire OCES membership plus the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Surinam, Trinidad & Tobago and the Cayman Islands, as well as Turks & Caicos as a non-permanent member state.