Caracas.-  The III Petrocaribe Summit of Heads of State and/or Government finished with the signing of important agreements that represent a leap forward in the consolidation of the democratization process and fair use of the region’s resources. The Energy Security Agreement (TSE by its initials in Spanish), the Political Declaration and the adhesion of Haiti and Nicaragua to Petrocaribe constituted the perfect end for this third summit held in Caracas on August 10-11.

Ten Caribbean countries attended the III Petrocaribe Summit and signed the TSE proposed by the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez. The nations of Granada, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Haiti, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Jamaica and Surinam constitute a forceful support to the Bolivarian Government’s policy of guaranteeing energy security and stability in the Caribbean, and of improving quality of life for the region’s peoples.

The agreement promotes enlarging refining capacity and building or improving the region’s energy infrastructure to dispatch, receive, transport, store and distribute crude and its products. Similarly, it seeks to simultaneously develop policies and measures so that each nation assigns 10% of its sowing capacity to produce strictly necessary quantities of ethanol, to build liquefaction and regasification plants, and to introduce gas in its energy matrix.

TSE also fosters the rational use of energy in search for maximum energy saving and efficiency. For this reason, it promotes the development of petrochemical development centers, the substitution of high-energy-consuming devices for more efficient ones, and the use of alternative energies such as wind, solar, geothermal and hydroelectric energy, among others.

Member countries agreed to create and strengthen binational joint venture companies, and to negotiate directly among States to eliminate intermediaries.

Political declaration: strategic alliance instrument

Petrocaribe’s fourteen member countries signed this III Summit’s Political Declaration, which establishes reviewing the progress made by this energy union mechanism born on June 29, 2005 during the First Energy Gathering of Petrocaribe Heads of State and/or Government held in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela.

This document highlights the role of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as the new direction of the union with social justice, which makes exchange possible, enlarging solidarity through social programs and “supranational” projects to foster the economy and trade among member countries, in other words, through new integration means different to capitalist practices.

“Petrocaribe has been implemented parallel to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Peoples of Our America”, affirmed President Chavez when reading excerpts of the aforementioned Petrocaribe Political Declaration. The Venezuelan President also indicated that the instrument signed specifies that from now on “we will forge open and friendly understanding among our governments with signatory States from ALBA and the Trade Agreement among the Peoples”.

Similarly, the declaration establishes the final consolidation of energy union as an instrument for regional political and strategic alliance. In this regard, Chavez highlighted that “the use of the energy leverage should allow advancing towards higher forms of economic, social and political integration to transform the Caribbean and all Latin America into the scenario of the pluripolar world currently being created”.

Nicaragua and Haiti undertake commitment for Caribbean union

The Republics of Haiti and Nicaragua officially joined the Petrocaribe regional union scheme when they signed the Energy Cooperation Agreement. The document was signed by Presidents Daniel Ortega y Jean Rene Preval, respectively. Now the energy block comprises 16 member countries and hopes more countries will join this unifying, supporting and cooperation initiative.

After hearing the positive results of other signatory countries, the Haitian President expressed his absolute intention of joining the energy union mechanism: “we express our political willingness to support and assist the Petrocaribe Agreement, which we will immediately sign”.

On his part, the Nicaraguan President, Daniel Ortega, expressed his enthusiasm to become part of the new cooperation and solidarity scheme: “we are motivated in this new time Latin America and the Caribbean are experimenting, a new era of their history. Despite the empire’s efforts to keep these regions subordinated and enslaved, we have continued to make progress with more strength, energy, dignity and sense of unity. People are talking about Latin American integration everywhere”, he stated.

President Chavez described the Petrocaribe initiative as a mechanism to search for the formula to liberate Caribbean countries: “we are in the search for the formula to liberate ourselves, to fly as sovereign countries towards new levels of development, what Bolivar called the maximum possible happiness for our peoples”.