On December 8, in Santiago de Cuba, Caribbean heads of government and representatives of a range of regional institutions will gather for the third Cuba-Caricom Summit.

The timing and outcome of this meeting is important for both Caricom and Cuba.

The summit will focus on a range of topics, including climate change, trade, technical cooperation, energy, natural disasters, and further exchanges in education and health care.

It will genuinely be special, fraternal and supportive with perhaps a quiet emphasis from the Cuban side on increasing the pace of delivery of Caricom's commitments.

unspoken subtext

Notwithstanding, this encounter will almost certainly have an unspoken sub-text, that is: What will any change in Cuba's longer-term relationship with Washington mean for regional economic development and Caricom's future economic relationship with Cuba?

Some Caribbean leaders are already thinking practically about this at a bilateral level as instanced by the steps taken recently by Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding to develop a strong functional dialogue on a wide range of issues between his ministers and officials and their Cuban counterparts.

But at an all-Caricom level, making a freer-trade relationship work for Caricom and Cuba remains slow and difficult.

To be fair, there are many practical impediments, not least of which are the absence of good communications and transport.

However, Cuba's desire to become an informatics hub for the region should at least suggest that freer trade in services should be much higher on the integration agenda.

One particular problem, writ large in the case of Cuba, is that, as in so many areas requiring regional cooperation, there is a gap between Caricom decision making and implementation.

This is because many outcomes can only be actioned by the private sector.

This suggests that this summit will only have real long-term trade significance if something like a mixed commission involving key Caribbean private-sector actors is established, creating relationships that enable Cuba, at the very least, to engage in a dialogue with the region's large sectoral private-sector associations.

But beyond this, the integration of Cuba more closely into its own region has a particular resonance at a time when it is likely that a new administration in Washington will change the policy of all of its predecessors.

In the last few days, the Brookings Institute - the think tank closest to those of President-elect Obama's advisers who will comprise his Latin American and Caribbean team at the White House, National Security Council and State Department - has published a document that suggests the ways in which US policy might be changed.

recommendations

The report from the Partnership for the Americas Commission - Dame Billie Miller, the former deputy prime minister and foreign minister of Barbados is a commission member - sets out recommendations that reflect closely many of the Latin American policy objectives that Mr Obama and those around him enunciated on the campaign trail.

For this reason, it is a document that should be essential reading for all who want to know what might happen next in relation to a new US partnership with the Americas on migration, counternarcotics and security, climate change and energy.

In it, a separate chapter on Cuba and the United States argues that because disproportionate attention has been paid to Cuba in the past, the resulting tensions have hindered the development of Washington's policy towards the hemisphere.

It goes on to observe that changed thinking among many Cuban Americans facilitates a change of policy and argues for one that "empowers the Cuban people to drive sustainable change from within by facilitating the free flow of information and expanding diplomatic networks to support human rights and democratic governance".

lifting restrictions

It puts first among its recommendations the lifting on all restrictions on travel to Cuba by US citizens.

It proposes the repeal of the communications embargo on radio, TV and the Internet; removing caps on expenditure and remittances from US citizens sending money to or travelling to Cuba; removing Cuba from the State Department's sponsors of terrorism list; promoting knowledge and reconciliation using federal funding for cultural, academic and sporting exchange.

It also recommends providing assistance in recovery from natural disasters; encouraging official contact between US and Cuban diplomats and officials; ending opposition to the engagement of the international community; and working with the EU to create a multilateral fund for civil society.

In other words, it argues for engagement as the first step towards establishing a basis for dialogue to try to resolve the almost half-century-long tensions between the US and Cuba.

While it is still far from certain how far and how fast Cuba might wish to move in response, given that any such initiatives have as an objective internal change, it is clear that barring some incident and Cuba's understandable insistence on mutual respect, a better climate for the long and difficult process of a negotiated change now exists.

For the rest of the Caribbean, the economic implications of just one of these policy recommendations measures occurring - the freeing of travel by all US citizens - will have significant implications.

Recent conversations in Havana suggest that Cuba will initially be constrained to manage US visitor arrivals - estimated at between one million and five million in the first years - not least because of the limited physical capacity of its hotel and tourism infrastructure. But while one answer may lie in actively encouraging cruise-ship 'home-porting' by US or other companies, any Cuban opening to the US tourism market is likely to be to the short-term detriment of other Caribbean destinations.

All of which is not to downgrade the very real and important cooperation that sets Cuba apart as a principled and important neighbour for Caricom.

Rather, it is to suggest that in much the same way that Cuba is moving rapidly to diversify its international relationships with nations like Brazil, China, Russia and others to withstand any possibility of longer-term US economic domination, that Cariforum nations should individually and jointly be following Jamaica's initiative and considering strategically how they position themselves for any eventual change in Havana's economic relationship with Washington.

David Jessop is director of the Caribbean Council. Email: david.jessop@ caribbean-council.org