The longest-serving Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines strongly encouraged Bermuda to become a full member of Caricom.

Ralph Gonsalves, who led the nation from 2001 to 2025, said countries in the Caribbean can’t tackle issues such as climate change, health or crime without working with each other and countries around the world.

He explained: “[All Caricom members] have a common history, our systems have evolved in particular ways, all of us speak European languages and there’s a geographic closeness to each of us — there are a lot of factors that predispose us to integration.”

Dr Gonsalves spoke during an episode of Caricom Conversations yesterday, hosted by Progressive Labour Party MP Christopher Famous.

He added that Caribbean countries will be “separate and inchoate” if they don’t channel shared experiences through institutions such as Caricom or the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States.

Dr Gonsalves said Caribbean countries realised the need for “functional co-operation” when the multinational West Indies Federation collapsed in and Jamaica and Trinidad became independent from Britain, all which happened in 1962.

Bermuda is an associate Caricom member, but the Government published a Green Paper, The Story of Us, that outlined full membership and hosted three town halls on the topic.

Dr Gonsalves said full Caricom membership could develop Bermuda’s financial regime.

He explained: “We are all interested in curbing money laundering and the financing of terrorism, but regulations can be made in such a manner to emasculate your financial services.

“You need support from other countries that may have a similar set of problems, even though those countries are not colonial territories, such as Barbados, Antigua, St Kitts & Nevis and the like.”

He added that difficulties within Caricom countries are addressed through the Council of Ministers for Trade and Economic Development or the Caribbean Court of Justice, but cases in some member-states can still be appealed to the Privy Council in London.

Dr Gonsalves said: “We need to be further enabling our Caribbean civilisation and need to address, in functional, institutional and structural terms, as much integration as the political market in the respective countries can bear.”

He believes successive Bermudian governments have shown interest in deepening relationships with Caribbean countries and told Bermudians who may be opposed to full Caricom membership that “nothing but good” can come from engaging deeper with the organisation.

He said: “I’m genuinely hopeful to see, in addition to where Bermuda has reached in linking institutionally with Caricom and OECS, they can go even further in building that relationship.”