Premier Fahie talks with 4th Vice President of the Guadeloupe Regional Council, Diana Perran and Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister, Gaston Browne. Photo Credit: Bria Smith/GIS

Premier Fahie talks with current Chairman and Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves. Photo Credit: Bria Smith/GIS

The two-day meeting from March 14 to 16, 2019, saw the formal accession of Guadeloupe to Associate Membership in the OECS with Hon FAhie saying he is especially happy that the cause of regional unity is being advanced. Photo: Internet Source

The two-day meeting from March 14 to 16, 2019, saw the formal accession of Guadeloupe to Associate Membership in the OECS with Hon FAhie saying he is especially happy that the cause of regional unity is being advanced.

Grateful

“It was a joy to be able to welcome Guadeloupe as an associate member of the body. I will be forever grateful for the way the leaders of the region welcomed me. At that meeting we were able to address the things that are of concern to the BVI,” Hon Fahie said.

The event saw participation from other OECS Heads including Chairman of the OECS Authority and Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph E. Gonsalves, Director General of the OECS Authority, Dr Didacus A. Jules and President of the Regional Council of Guadeloupe Mr Ary Chalus who all addressed the body.

According to Hon Fahie, “We are encouraged by the solidarity expressed by members in our fight to save our Financial Services sector. We also got a listening ear about our concerns about the aggressive push against our interests by some members of the UK parliament. We have no doubt that through regional solidarity, the cause of the BVI will be rightly defended.”

Sub-Regional Solidarity

According to Hon Fahie in his address, “Our struggles in this Caribbean basin have always been one and the same and it manifests itself in the modern day through our shared interest in having to defend and protect our different financial services sectors from unfair and onerous demands from a few in the United Kingdom Parliament in particular in our case; and the European Union in all of our cases.”

He says that the VI will continue to seek solidarity in standing up to a new aggressive push from outsiders, “which seems determined to issue edicts to its overseas territories in the region, without paying attention to the expressed will of the people, and ignoring our own values and customs which are deeply fashioned by both history, geography and our Faith.”