Not long into his job as leader of the Jamaica Labour Party, Bruce Golding established a working group of top party officials to determine what should be the JLP's position on the Caribbean Community (Caricom) and the broader process of regional integration.

That move suggested that after more than 40 years of JLP scepticism towards the Caribbean, Mr. Golding was preparing to nudge his party closer to an embrace of the region. The old fears of a creeping federalism and its potency as a political tool, it was assumed, were dissipating in the JLP.

Nearly two years have passed and there is no sign the working group has reported. If it has, its findings have not been made public, and neither is there any indication that they have made their way into policy. The fact is that the new JLP leadership is yet to enunciate clearly and coherently on Caricom and regional integration, a matter that is becoming urgent for a number of reasons, two of immediate import.

Firstly, the JLP will face a general election before year-end, which could propel it into government at a time of critical global trade negotiations involving Caricom as a group, but in which Jamaica is a key player. The other point is that with former influential party officials beginning to declare on Jamaica's role in Caricom, the JLP could find that there is dissonance on the line; this at a time when it is important for the Opposition to send clear, unambiguous signals to regional partners on the stance a JLP government would assume on integration issues.

We feel that it is important for the Opposition to assure the region that whichever party is in office, Jamaica will remain a credible partner ready to stand by its existing commitments to Caricom and a deeper regional process. Any suggestion that integration is futile and that the process so far has been a waste of time will not only be problematic for the Caribbean, but would weaken the region's relationship and bargaining position with global partners.

A single regional market and ultimately a single seamless economic space between 15 small and relatively poor states are more rational responses to rampant global competition, rather than each individually attempting to tough it out. The fact that Jamaica has problems competing within the community has more to do with this country's irrational policies of the past instead of fundamentals with Caricom as a concept.

In any event, Caricom, apart from the inherent and internal logic of any such move, is being driven to conglomeration by external forces. The European Union insists on negotiating a partnership arrangement with a single bloc, rather than a slew of mini states. There is a plethora of other trade/economic blocs.

Moreover, the comparison of the social and economic dissimilarities between EU member states and constituent parts of Caricom is at best disingenuous. There is a wide gap between Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti; so too between Romania and Bulgaria and Britain. This, in our case, is more an argument for conglomeration.

But should we really want a case for a deepening regional integration, one is being made by Caribbean people and businesses that have begun to build integration from the bottom-up. Ask the several thousand Jamaicans who live and work, say, in Antigua, or Trinidadian and Jamaican firms which operate in each other's home territory.