Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean

31.3.2009

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2645/09
by Johan Van Hecke (ALDE)
to the Council

The British Government recently decided to partially suspend the Constitution of the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Its reason for doing so lay in an interim report by a British commission of inquiry into corruption on the islands. The [final] report is to be published on 30 April. The report finds a state of general administrative incompetence to exist in the islands and recommends that London suspend the entire Constitution for an indefinite period and transfer authority to the Governor. According to Governor Gordon Wetherall, the proposed suspension means that no elections will be held. Premier Michael Misick, who resigned on 23 March, calls London's move ‘modern-day colonialism’. The Turks and Caicos Islands have had their own government since 1976 but are not independent.

Can the Presidency comment on these developments, which according to the secretariat of Caricom — the Caribbean political and trading bloc — are a threat to the democratic process on the islands?

OJ C 189, 13/07/2010