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KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, Apr 27, CMC – St. Vincent and the Grenadines Foreign Affairs Minister, Dwight Fitzgerald Bramble has told his counterparts from the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) that their deliberations on Monday must ensure that decisions do not remain as entries in a report, but become actions in the real world.
Addressing the ninth meeting of the OECS Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Bramble, who is chairing the deliberations, said that the international order that shaped the conduct of states for much of the past eight decades is under strain in ways that would have seemed inconceivable just only a generation ago.
“We are witnessing the return of great power rivalry, the weaponisation of trade and energy, the erosion of multilateral norms, and the deepening of climate emergency that strikes at the very existential foundation of small states such as the ones in the OECS.”
Bramble said that the Middle East remains an area of “devastating conflict with direct implications for global energy prices and supply chains,” and that hemispheric relations are being worryingly reconfigured with consequences” that reach into the daily lives of people of the sub-region.
He said that the situations in Cuba and Haiti are not distant news for the Eastern Caribbean states, but “lived realities that test our solidarity, our governance, and our humanity.
“Inflation, energy insecurity, and migration pressures are not abstract concepts. They are the texture of daily life for the families we serve and the people we represent. In this environment, no member state can navigate these turbulent times in isolation.”
Bramble said that St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with a population of just over 110,000 people, cannot project itself merely through size.
“But we can project development through coherence, through solidarity, and through the disciplined collective use of our voice in international forums. The OECS does not merely respond to history. We are here to help shape it.
“That is the irreplaceable value of this organisation and of this Council. The agenda that we have adopted for today reflects both the urgency and the complexity of the challenges before us.”
He recalled at the mpst recent meeting of foreign ministers, decisions had been taken on geopolitical resilience, climate action, free movement, Haiti, food security, trade, the Canada-based Eastern Caribbean Liaison Service (ECLS), Morocco, and the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme.
“Today, this Council must go further. We must ensure that our decisions do not remain as entries in a report, but become actions in the real world. Accountability is the bedrock of institutional credibility, and credibility is the currency of small states.
“We will consider in this meeting today geopolitical diversification, energy resilience, developments in Cuba and Haiti, the restructuring of our joint missions, the regularisation of the ECLS, and the integrity of our citizenship by investment programme,” under which foreign investors are granted citizenship of some OECS member countries in return for making a substantial investment in these country’s socio-economic development.
Bramble said that these issues are at the very heart of what it means to govern in the interest of the people in the sub-region in the 21st century.
“I wish to reiterate and to really emphasise my country’s, our country’s, and Vincent and the Grenadines’ commitment to ensuring that today’s meeting is not simply a forum for discussion, but a forum for decision. And I am confident that my colleague foreign ministers…will ensure that that happens.”
Bramble said he anticipates each delegation’s participation with a view to moving beyond analysis and toward action.
“ Let us therefore proceed with purpose, with solidarity, and with the awareness that history will judge us not by the eloquence of our interventions, but by the courage and consequences of our decisions,” Bramble added.
The OECS groups the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis and Montserrat.
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