The Bahamas, CARICOM and the 50th Birthday of the European Union

by Larry Smith

"Leave this Europe, where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them, at the corner of every one of their own streets, and in all the corners of the globe." Franz Fanon, the Wretched of the Earth, 1963

An amusing Associated Press photograph caught my eye recently. It showed the French president, Jaques Chirac, rubbing noses with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, at a celebration marking the 50th birthday of the European Union.

The fact that this ceremonial summit and public show of affection took place in a new Berlin - the capital of a reunited Germany at the centre of an integrated Europe - is the most powerful reminder yet that the horrors of the first half of the 20th century are behind us.

The European Union had its start in the aftermath of the most destructive war in human history; a war that killed 60 million people - including the murder of some 20 million Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other unfortunates in the Holocaust.

A historic reconciliation began when the two bitterest enemies on the continent - the French and Germans - agreed to jointly manage their strategic heavy industries in 1951. A common market was set up by the Treaty of Rome six years later, linking the former battlegrounds of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

This pact ended centuries of warfare by Europeans both on and off the continent. It also ended succcessive attempts to unite Europe by force - the French under Napoleon, the Germans under Hitler, and the Russians under Stalin. It marked the first time that Europeans gave up some of their sovereignty in the interest of peace.

But the concept of a "United States of Europe" had been talked about for a long time. According to Victor Hugo, writing in 1849, "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood...When we shall see...the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas."

The British wartime leader Winston Churchill made similar remarks in 1946: "it is from Europe that have sprung that series of frightful nationalistic quarrels, which we have seen in this 20th century wreck the peace and mar the prospects of all mankind...We must build a kind of United States of Europe...The first step must be a partnership between France and Germany."

Churchill's argument was that a united Europe was the best way to heal the hatreds of the Second World War, prevent future wars, and ensure economic prosperity. In that same year, he famously coined the term "iron curtain" to describe the line separating the West from Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe: "The safety of the world requires a unity in Europe, from which no nation should be permanently outcast."

Over the years, the European enterprise expanded to include Britain, Denmark and Ireland in 1973, Greece in 1981, Portgual and Spain in 1986. Then, after 30 years, the Berlin Wall that symbolised Churchill's Iron Curtain was breached. And in 1990 East Germany, which had been controlled with a mailed fist by the Soviets and their puppets since 1945, was peacefully reunited with democratic West Germany.

As the Soviet bloc disintegrated, other formerly communist nations joined the European Union, so that now there are a total of 27 member states. And next year, the tiny Caribbean islands of Bonaire, Saba and Sint Eustatius will become special municipalities of the Netherlands, and also be a part of the European Union.

Ironically, Angela Merkel, the current German leader, was an East German who became involved in the democracy movement and was appointed a centre-right cabinet minister soon after reunification. She was elected Germany's first woman chancellor in 2005.

The Frenchman she rubbed noses with at last week's summit was a communist in the 1950s, but later came to support the Gaullist centre-right, becoming prime minister in 1974 and eventually taking control of France's right-wing governing coalition. Chirac has been president of France since 1995.

Adding to the twists and turns of political fortune is the current president of the European Commission - a former Portuguese prime minister named Jose Manuel Barroso. As a young man he was a Maoist firebrand, and when he shifted allegiance to the centre-right in 1980, he helped end wars in former Portuguese colonies in Africa and Asia.

"In Europe, 2007 is the year when the past and the future meet," Barroso said recently. And in her speech to the recent birthday summit, Merkel said the European Union was a dream come true. But polls show that most Europeans don't feel the same way, and 41 per cent think it should be stripped of powers.

Euroscepticism is probably strongest in Britain, where articles recently recalled the words of a British diplomat sent to observe a 1955 conference preparing the Treaty of Rome. He told delegates then that the project was doomed. If the treaty was agreed it would not be ratified and, if ratified, it would have "no chance" of coming into force.

And the latest sceptic is the German Pope Benedict who has accused the EU of apostasy for refusing to mention Christianity in its 50th anniversary declaration. The pontiff said Europe could "not be built by ignoring its people's identities", and also warned that the continent's declining birthrate meant that Europe was "losing faith in its own future".

Some of our politicos want the Bahamas to integrate with the Caribbean Community so that (they say) we can share the same prosperity and solidarity enjoyed by member states of the European Union. But the difference is like chalk and cheese - not just between the EU and CARICOM, but also between the Bahamas and our West Indian counterparts.

Following on the heels of the failed West Indian Federation (of which we were never a part), the 15-member Caribbean Community was formed in 1973 and the Bahamas joined in 1983. But when CARICOM agreed to a closer economic union, the enormous differences between regional states in terms of geography, size and level of development became much clearer.

For example, the income difference between the richest (Bahamas) and poorest (Haiti) CARICOM nations is as high as 35 to 1. Before its recent enlargement, the European Union had an income differential of just 4 to 1. And the experts also point to the lack of regional transport links and trading relationships, with the Bahamas having virtually no trade at all with any CARICOM member while retaining close economic and political ties to North America.

As the Inter-American Development Bank has pointed out, there has never been a full cost-benefit analysis of West Indian integration to assess its net benefit to individual economies like ours, and to the region as a whole. In the absence of such hard evidence, it is difficult for proponents to maintain the momentum of the process.

Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell - who had been pushing strongly for integration with CARICOM - was forced to recant in the face of widespread public opposition: "There is no argument anymore," he said. "We have accepted the wish of the Bahamian people on this matter and that's the end of it."

But we don't think the political elites are ready to bury this issue quite yet. It will come back; and when that day happens we should keep in mind that, for many countries, and especially the Bahamas, the benefits of regional integration are intangible and long term while the costs are real and immediate.