Above: Barbados PM Freundel Stuart (CJ Photo)

By the Caribbean Journal staff

While some view CARICOM in a pessimistic light, Barbados Prime Minister Freundel Stuart said he was not among the regional body’s critics.

While CARICOM was focusing on expanding its infrastructure and creating new regional institutions, deeper Caribbean integration required a “greater determination to united the people of the region,” he said.

“If you ask the question, what [CARICOM] has achieved, the list is long and impressive,” he said. “I don’t think CARICOM is in any danger. There is a lot of political goodwill. It think CARICOM IS SAFE.”

Stuart was speaking following a meeting with Picewell Forbes, the Bahamas’ new High Commissioner to Barbados.

On that relationship, the Prime Minister said the two countries’ history of close ties would continue.

He said the “warm ties” between the Bahamas and Barbados could be traced to the relationship between the late Sir Lynden Pindling, former Prime Minister of the Bahamas, and former Barbados Prime Minister Errol Barrow in the early 1970s.

Both Pindling and Barrow were the first Prime Ministers of their respective states.