Above: Dominica (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

Former Dominica Cabinet Secretary Felix Gregoire has been appointed the country’s new Commissioner to the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.

Gregoire succeeds the late Ambassador Charles Maynard.

“For a while now, we’ve been looking at integration in the region at the CARICOM level and at the OECS level, but certainly the OECS is moving much faster than CARICOM and that has shown itself in many aspects of the functioning and the programming of the OECS,” he said in a government release. “So it is important for Dominica to have the Commissioner to the OECS.”

He said that moving forward on the Caribbean integration process would be a major agenda item.

“Caribbean unity, OECS unity is something that I’m very excited about,” he said. “Not only am I excited about it, it is something I woudl like to see implemented, because we have been talking about unity for a number of years now and there are various reasons why we have not progressed as fast as we should.”

Last week, Gregoire made his first out-of-state trip, visiting talks between the OECS Secretariat and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank.

“When you look at how competitive it is globally, for us to survive, we need to be able to work together so that we can make an impact and our countries can be viable in this day and age,” he said.