EU, US concerns over CBI programme stem from security risks

The St Lucia government yesterday said that the growth of the Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme over the years had become a problem for the European Union (EU) and the United States based on national security threats to their countries. Deputy prime minister of St Lucia Dr Ernest Hilaire, who overseas the CBI programme, told a news conference that both the US and the EU “had expressed concern about the growth of the programmes and therefore they had issues with potential threats to national security through the programmes, meaning that there were individuals who may not have the best interests of those countries at heart wanting to use those programmes as a way of getting entry into their countries.

“We’ve always contended and said two things. One, that we appreciate their concern and we share it and that we will work with them to make sure that the programmes do not constitute a security threat to them. So, we’ve made that very clear,” Hilaire told reporters, adding: “Our number one principle is that we will work with our international partners to make sure the programme does not constitute a threat and that we would work with them.”

Hilaire said that Castries had even put in place recommendations from the EU including changing “our legislation …to reinforce the programme.”“We introduced value metrics. So we actually instituted a number of changes to strengthen the programmes and to make them more foul proof. So we felt we had done quite a lot and we were advancing working together.