Most years Caribbean governments and their counterparts from beyond the region hold policy level encounters at which they discuss matters of common interest. Such meetings, involving heads of government or senior ministers, have in the recent past included a meeting in 2011 in Trinidad with the Chinese leadership; a bi-regional summit between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean in Madrid in 2010; a heads of government meeting with the US President and Secretary of State in 2009; and high level exchanges with individual nations which have a continuing interest in the region such as Canada, France, Spain and the UK.

The theory is that such events, if well prepared and with a clear outcome and action plan, offer not only the opportunity for a policy level exchange and the strengthening of high level relationships but also a more certain perspective on the future. However, there is a sense in Europe and North America that unless encounters with the Caribbean become more dynamic, and focus on changed realities and what is deliverable, they are in danger of having ever less value.

Rightly or wrongly, what is being said in private is that much of the anglophone part of the Caribbean does not relate to the ways in which traditional partners now think, is …..