By Staff Writer
CASTRIES, St. Lucia, Sept 2026, CMC – Prime Minister Phillip J Pierre Monday said that a technical mission from the countries of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) with a Citizenship by Investment (CBI) programme will visit Europe next month as they seek to prevent Europe from ending the free visa access to holders of their passports.
Pierre, speaking to reporters at the post-Cabinet news conference, said that while in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly last week, he, together with Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne and the OECS Director General, Dr. Didacus Jules, met with European Union officials on the issue.
He said that following the talks, it was agreed that a technical mission would travel to Brussels and St. Lucia would be represented by Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Ernest Hilaire.
“As you know, the countries that have CBI programmes, we’ve taken all the necessary steps to ensure that our due diligence is intact, to ensure we were asked to have six points of intervention.
“We’ve followed all of that, we’ve strengthened our due diligence, we’ve made our programmes as accountable as we can, we’ve formed an Eastern Caribbean Regulatory Authority where the programmes will be regulated by that authority,” Pierre said, adding “but the fact is, the Europeans have said that in two years, in spite and despite of all that, having a programme could mean visa suspension.”
Under the CBI programme, the islands of Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis and St. Lucia provide citizenship to foreign investors in return for making a substantial investment in the socio-economic development of these islands.
Pierre said that the technical committee comprising members of all five OECS countries would be “negotiating with Europe as to the process, what happens before then.
“There are many things that can happen in between. But the point is, after two years, a Schengen visa is no longer going to be available to you once you have a CBI programme”
A Schengen visa lets non-EU nationals visit 29 European countries for up to 90 days within any 180 days.
“But we continue to work, we continue to strengthen our programmes, and St. Lucia is fortunate in that the CBI programme is about 10 per cent of our revenue, and…our programme still is very attractive.
“…we are in a fortunate situation in that our programme is not our main revenue source, which is why we continue to diversify our economy. But it’s a programme that we would not like to lose, because it has done quite a bit for our country. But we are going to try to protect it”
Pierre said that the truth is, St. Lucia and the OECS countries have “done all what we’ve been asked to do.
“We’ve strengthened our due diligence, we’ve strengthened our accountability, we’ve formed the Eastern Caribbean Regulatory Authority, we’ve done all what we were asked to do,” he said, adding, “ we cannot dictate policies of other countries, so we have to accept, and we have to respect their position.
“So we await the results of the meeting of the technical committee. I’m sure Dr. Hilaire is going to represent St. Lucia as well, and we look forward to the results of that meeting, which is going to be held in October.
“You know, we are saying to Europe that we want to diversify our economy. We are trying our best. We don’t want to be begging. We don’t always want to be begging. We don’t always want to be knocking on the door, and sometimes we want to …control our own destiny.”
Pierre said that the discussions would also take into consideration “what happens two years from now, post 2028”.
Pierre told reporters that he is confident that St. Lucia would survive the EU position, noting, “We’re not going to lie down and die. We’ve never laid down and died. We’ve never.
“We’ve survived slavery. We’ve survived bananas. We’ve survived sugarcane. We’ve survived financial services. We’ve survived. We’ve survived it. So we’re going to survive. But we need to take our people with us.
“So we need to talk to them, you know, continue to converse with them. And we need people sometimes to look at the bigger picture. But it’s a very torturous idea for a Prime Minister whose revenue, 50 per cent of his revenue, comes from a source. And that may not happen.
“And I said, we’re going to try our best not to offend the Europeans, not to offend the Americans, but we have to survive as a country, and we are going to survive in legal ways. So it’s a very difficult proposition that we have, but we’re going to work with them to see if we can come to a solution,” he added.
CMC/ag/ir/2026