Entirely predictably, Jamaica has told Trinidad and Tobago's Prime Minister Patrick Manning that Kingston was not interested in a political union to which Mr Manning and the leaders of St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent said they were ready to sign on.

Indeed, it was Jamaica's decision to opt out that precipitated the collapse of the West Indies Federation in 1962 and, since then, Prime Minister Bruce Golding's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has maintained an antipathy to this country's involvement in any such experiment.

However, despite its periodic scepticism about regional cooperation, Jamaica has been an important, and reliable, member of the trade and functional cooperation group, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) including the community's effort to transform itself into a single economy.

To be fair, too, Mr Golding has, for the most part, transcended the constraints of the JLP's history with his engagement in Caricom, although, as he made it clear to Mr Manning this week, there is a Rubicon which he will not cross. And, that is all right.

Undermining CARICOM?

What seems not so logical is the emerging view, particularly in Jamaica, that a political union between Trinidad and Tobago, St Lucia, Grenada and St Vincent - however defined and whoever else might go aboard - will somehow undermine Caricom, to the point of making the grouping irrelevant.

Here is the point: Caricom defines itself as a community of sovereign nations, meaning that its member states are all independent states - except for Montserrat - which choose to coordinate policies in a number of areas. But, even at this, the pace and scope of their involvement in the legal framework of the community and broader areas of cooperation varies.

Indeed, it was only at their summit in Antigua in July that community leaders, in response to the lack of consensus on the trade treaty with European Union, highlighted the notion of a 'variable geometry' within Caricom - member states can move at their own pace.

Critical also is the fact that though all its members are small and developing, Caricom comprises countries of different sizes and in various states of underdevelopment. Moreover, the seven-member Organisation of East Caribbean States, a subgroup within Caricom, on some issues, comes close to operating as a political union.

For the good

The bottom line, therefore, is that a realignment of sovereignty arrangements among some members, whether federal, confederal or a unitary process, would affect the political and economic structures of those states but will have little immediate impact on the broader community - except for the good.

Indeed, part of the problem of the community and its failure to achieve the economic breakthrough has been the inefficiency of its governance process. The fear of its members to cede some of their sovereignty to a critical centre - as the Europeans do in the case of Brussels - slows decision-making and often makes the community moribund. A political union, assuming that Mr Manning's initiative happens, will narrow the centres to be engaged.

For St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada, with their economies suffering with the erosion of agricultural preferences in Europe, a Trinidad and Tobago is positive on three fronts. The most immediate is reduced cost of government structures, but perhaps more important is the likely psychological boost from linking with an asset-rich partner and then, for both sides, bigger markets.