Van Steen’s farewell

European Union (EU) Ambassador Marianne Van Steen concluded her tour of duty on August 7, heading back to Brussels with a pledge to enhance EU- Caribbean partnerships as she maintains a keen interest in the region in a new post that will keep her close to Jamaica, her home since 2020.

That promise includes the exploration of big investment opportunities that could see the strengthening of Jamaica’s energy resilience under the EU’s Global Gateway Investment Agenda.

Next year, representatives from the European Investment Bank will visit Jamaica to explore opportunities that could see them providing loans for the development of different sectors, including solar energy and the Kingston Harbour.

But the end-of-duty promises are a far cry from the start of her tour, when she was appointed the EU’s ambassador to Jamaica, Belize, The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos, and The Cayman Islands as the COVID-19 pandemic raged.

No stranger to the Americas, she arrived in Jamaica after a four-year term as EU ambassador to Ecuador. It was in Jamaica that she contracted COVID-19 and had to meet most of her staff online after her arrival. A social butterfly, she took comfort in the warmth of her residence – enjoying the climate and the island’s fruits – and it was from there that she largely observed Jamaica until the country began to sputter back to some semblance of normalcy as the COVID-19 restrictions were slowly relaxed.

While in Jamaica, Van Steen fully immersed herself in local life, taking to the streets to promote the EU. She opened the bloc’s new eco-friendly headquarters on Seymour Avenue in St Andrew and set about re-imaging the group’s relationship with the region as no longer donor to recipients, but partners, words she used repeatedly during an interview with The Sunday Gleaner a week before her departure.

“It was challenging, but it was very enriching for me. I have been an ambassador before, coming from Latin America, so coming to the Caribbean was new, and one of the things I learnt is that the Caribbean is very, very different from Latin America. We always worked with Latin America and the Caribbean as a group, or we try to work with them, but coming here, you just feel the big difference. As a diplomat, in order to do the things we need to do, we need to understand those differences,” she said.

Van Steen used the opportunity to explain how the EU’s relationship with the region has evolved.

“I feel we have been able to strengthen our partnership. We do not call it anymore a recipient relationship, but it’s a partnership that we are building up, and I think we got that. I really feel that at the end of this four years, we can say that it’s not the European Union as this very big donor assisting Jamaica reaching sustainable development goals. I think we worked on very different strands. On the political strand, we had political dialogue...really substantial and interesting and there was also trade … ,” she explained in summary.

The importance of partnerships

Economic partnership and cooperation, she said, was not simply about doling out European taxpayers’ money, but included the exchange of ideas and information. However, Van Steen wished there were more EU investments flowing into Jamaica.

Though the Belgian arrived during the 2020 lockdowns, she said it was not a lost year as she started meeting Jamaicans from all walks of life and began immersing herself in the island’s culture.

“On the political side, we live in a geopolitical panorama, which is actually quite worrying, I would say. What we believed in, say, 10 years ago, has changed. And since I arrived here, it was Ukraine, and then Haiti, so many of those challenges ... . These are global phenomena, and that makes me reach out from the political side to make partners,” she told The Sunday Gleaner. “We cannot pretend that we are big and wonderful and do not need smaller countries in the Caribbean. We all need each other.”

Continuing, she said: “You cannot fight alone against climate change. You can’t fight alone against someone who breached the rule of law or the basic United Nations Charter. I have seen Jamaica reaching out on Haiti, ,and there is a huge responsibility here in the Caribbean, which is why I think also [that] we should be there to support. We have seen so many challenges worldwide, but politically speaking, I really think that it is important to bring [together] all the countries that still believe in the basic values, the basic human rights, UN Charter. If we cannot be strengthening our partnership in this world, then who can?”

Politically there has been hard work, and Van Steen expressed gratitude to Jamaica for standing with Europe against the “war of aggression between Russia and Ukraine”. However, she made it clear that the EU budget support is not contingent on Jamaica supporting the bloc on votes at the United Nations.

Citizen, Security and Justice, important EU-supported projects

Van Steen said when she arrived in Jamaica, citizens’ security was one of the first things she was briefed on. It was also the topic of the first discussions she had with Prime Minister Andrew Holness.

“Yes, [citizens’ security is] the big one we have discussed among colleagues here, and it’s one issue on our agenda, that and crime and violence and what can be done. So the EU, through my predecessor, set up this programme by which we tried to help the Government to implement its own plan to increase citizens’ security,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

Van Steen made it clear that the EU was not importing a programme, but rather assisting Jamaica with funding to implement its own crime and violence-reduction initiatives. The bloc gave the island a grant of €20 million for four years with one year left. At the end of each year, the EU requires the Government to disclose the number of indicators achieved for the next disbursement to be calculated based on this performance.

“In order to increase citizens’ security, you would need to make sure that you address children at risk, youth at risk, make sure that police stations are equipped to do what they are supposed to do. You need to make sure that children go to school, they can go to school in a safe way, and that there are safe places,” she said, explaining the EU’s contribution requirement.

The EU, she said, requires that the relevant ministries collaborate on programmes for the safety of children. With the establishment of a secretariat, it has greatly improved the cohesion and coordination of the programmes.

Van Steen said that on occasions, she was uncompromising, insisting that the blueprint is followed throughout the process when suggestions or requests were made to move a particular indicator or target.

“I have said no .... . It is true that the Government can decide where they want to put the emphasis, but they need to show the results. And if they don’t show the results, then we are not paying. But I am happy about that one because it was a very comprehensive programme, and it was not just the injection of the money, and it did not all go into the budget of the Government,” she reiterated.

With many of the initiatives being medium to long term, she said the expectations and results would be seen over time. Already with some encouraging signs, she said efforts must be sustained as experience has shown “that things can go up and down very fast”.

One EU requirement is that the island’s police stations are properly equipped for both males and females as more women join the force. A number of police stations have been selected for refurbishing to meet this standard, and she was pleased with the improvements in those she visited to look at the progress.

Other beneficiaries included civil society groups, which not only monitored, but complemented the work of the Government and a group of technical experts attached to various ministries.

The well-supported EU 5K Run – the proceeds of which went to crime and violence-reduction efforts – was a way of getting close to the Jamaican people and vice versa, bringing persons from all walks of society together to show that each had a role to play in tackling crime.

Monies were also used to finance summer camps and programmes to help children read and write as Van Steen expressed surprise that some children as old as 12 years old were illiterate. She referenced Creative Language-Based Learning as one entity making strides in this area. The other programmes did not require an injection of funds in the Consolidated Fund as the EU worked with implementing agencies. One of these programmes was the Spotlight Initiative, a UN high-impact programme to end violence against women and girls in the Caribbean. She expressed hope that the two programmes would be sustained.

There is also a programme aimed at connecting all schools digitally so that all can benefit from the strengths of the higher-performing ones. This, Van Steen told The Sunday Gleaner, fits into the Global Gateway programme, which is a strategy to boost smart, clean, and secure connections in digital, energy, and transport sectors, and to strengthen health, education and research systems across the world. These sectors will be the focus of big investments to allow Jamaica to make “the leap forward that it needs”.

She said that Hurricane Beryl was an eye-opener to how vulnerable Jamaica is to natural disasters, with sections of the country still without electricity six weeks later.

The EU, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank, is looking at providing a grant to strengthen the island’s energy resilience. While there is nothing yet concrete, discussions have been held with government officials.

“I really think that that is one of the interventions that you will hear more of in the future – energy resilience,” she stated.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com