PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):

At least three Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are seeking to establish a political union and will soon undertake a study on that possibility, St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves announced Saturday.

Gonsalves, who is ending a two-day official visit to Trinidad and Tobago, said the union of the southern Caribbean would involve Grenada and the twin-island oil rich republic.

Gonsalves said that former St Lucia prime minister Dr Vaughan Lewis, who also served as the director general of the sub-regional Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), and Trinidadian diplomat Dr Cuthbert Joseph would be approached to undertake the feasibility study on the proposed union of the three islands.

T&T is ready

Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning told reporters that his country "is prepared to enter into a political union arrangement with any country or countries in the Caribbean that are prepared to go along with us".

Manning added: "That has been our position from time immemorial (and) nothing has changed."

He said that, even though there had been many attempts at integration without much success, "one advantage we have today is the advantage of our experience of the past".

"We are moving into a world today where you are moving from one way access to markets to reciprocity in trade and there are countries in the Caribbean that are very, very wary of that approach, fearing that they may not be able to survive in a world like that," he said.

"There are some countries in the Caribbean that welcome it, who feel it can be done quite easily," he added, noting that his oil-rich republic was among those states.