NASSAU, Bahamas (CMC) – Caribbean Community (CARICOM) leaders meet here on Thursday for the 36th inter-sessional summit discussing a wide range of issues aimed at strengthening the 15-member regional integration movement.

“The objectives of the 15 member states that make up the Caribbean Community are well known to us and this geopolitical alliance has served the Caribbean well over the years, especially through the principle of functional cooperation,” said host Prime Minister Perry Christie.

Many of the issues to be discussed at the two-day meeting form part of the five-year CARICOM strategic plan, which includes “strategies to renew the commitment to and strengthen actions for enhancing regional unity”.

Speaking in Parliament earlier this week, Christie, who is also the CARICOM Chairman, told legislators that CARICOM continues to work together to improve standards of living and work of the people in the region.

He said the regional leaders were committed to “ the full employment of labor and other factors of production; accelerated, coordinated and sustained economic development and convergence; expansion of trade and economic relations with third states; enhanced levels of international competitiveness; organization for increased production and productivity; achievement of a greater measure of economic leverage and effectiveness of member states in dealing with third states, groups of States and entities of any description”.

He said the February 26-27 summit will allow the regional leaders “to continue our mandate.

“As for The Bahamas, I have placed on the agenda of the upcoming meetings for general discussion, the need to leverage CARICOM’s human, cultural and natural assets for the economic development of the community.”

He said this issue was raised by the former Jamaica Prime Minister PJ Patterson as recently as November 2014 during his address to the 19th Annual Multi-national Business Conference here and that Patterson has been invited to facilitate discussions on this matter.

Prime Minister Christie said that  on the issue of regional security, and particularly in light of the threat of the Islamic State of Iran and Syria (ISIS), the Council of National Security and Law Enforcement (CONSOLE) will convene a meeting to consider the briefings of the Commissioners of Police and Intelligence Agencies on this threat.

The other agenda items for the two-day summit include the establishment of the CARICOM Committee of Ambassadors; revision of emoluments and proposed pension rules for judges of the Caribbean Court of Justice; financing of the CARICOM Secretariat and community institutions as well as reparations for native genocide and slavery.

Christie said that the financing and composition of The Marijuana Commission as well as relations with the Dominican Republic are also matters on the agenda.

“I wish to add that in light of our local immigration reform efforts which are very different from the denationalization of Dominicans of Haitian descent by a court ruling of the Dominican Republic Constitutional Court in September 2013, CARICOM must engage in political dialogue and contact with the Dominican Republic.

“The Community must do so Mr Speaker within the context of the requirements of CARIFORUM, under the revised Cotonou Agreement and the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA),” he said.

CARICOM has suspended any discussion on the membership of the Dominican Republic into its grouping following the recent controversial court ruling that denies the children of foreign nationals born in the Dominican Republic of Haitian parents the automatic right to claim citizenship.