European Union meets Caribbean CBI countries for a productive fact-finding mission

The European Union (EU) met with Caribbean Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programmes last week to discuss the operations and management of the programmes.

In a productive fact-finding mission, the EU acknowledged the importance of CBI programmes for Caribbean CBI countries while also reiterating the importance of the countries’ due diligence processes.

The EU-Caribbean discussions were held in Dominica from Wednesday, 24th January 2024 at the Intercontinental Dominica Cabrits Resort. Heads of Caribbean CBI Units were accompanied by other senior government officials at their individual scheduled meetings.

Each country had a dedicated slot to work with the EU and discuss their respective programmes. The meetings were collaborative in nature and aimed to continue the EU’s ongoing engagement with the Caribbean CBI programmes.

In these fruitful conversations, the EU learned more about the cooperative CBI information sharing regimes between the Caribbean CBI programmes. Information sharing lends itself to enhanced due diligence checks across countries.

The meetings highlighted the Caribbean CBI programmes’ high-level, multi-layered nature of scrutiny provided to CBI applicants. Accordingly, the EU underscored that action against the CBI programmes would only take place if security issues were not taken seriously.

The Caribbean CBI programmes feature ongoing monitoring of applicants, multistep checks across countries and collective treatment of applicant denials – critical aspects for a successful programme.

Despite the positive meetings, the EU has not made any formal announcements nor agreed on any definite items as a result of their meeting with Caribbean CBI personnel.

The EU supports and understands the important role that CBI plays in the economic development and sustainability offerings of Caribbean countries.

Caribbean countries understand that not taking security risks seriously would jeopardise their programmes, and subsequently their economic and sustainable development.

The wider CBI industry has stood up against enhanced scrutiny from international partners, whereas the Caribbean have approached this scrutiny as an opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the integrity of their CBI programmes.