KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

Head of the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) del­e­ga­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go Pe­ter Cavendish has re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that they can freely vis­it Eu­rope un­der the Schen­gen visa-free scheme.

He was speak­ing at Eu­rope Day cel­e­bra­tions, which al­so marked 50 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions and part­ner­ship be­tween the EU and Trinidad and To­ba­go, at Mille Fleurs, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day evening.

“Let me re­it­er­ate, the EU has no visas, no du­ties and no tar­iffs for its re­la­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“We are par­tic­u­lar­ly hap­py that un­der the Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment, T&T busi­ness­es have ac­cess to a mar­ket of 448 mil­lion Eu­ro­peans and that its cit­i­zens may go freely to Eu­rope un­der the Schen­gen visa-free scheme.

“Fur­ther, the EU has heard the voice of Trinidad and To­ba­go and those of oth­er coun­tries re­gion­al­ly and else­where on the need for re­form of the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial and bank­ing or­der and the fu­ture evo­lu­tion of those arrange­ments.”

Cavendish, who has com­plet­ed his four-year term in T&T, said there is a need to ad­dress the fu­ture fi­nanc­ing of cli­mate mit­i­ga­tion ac­tions.

“We now have to en­sure that our part­ner­ships on the dif­fer­ent plat­forms pros­per and suc­ceed as we plan for the next EU CELAC sum­mit, which takes place this year in Colom­bia,” he added.

“We wish to re­alise the op­por­tu­ni­ties iden­ti­fied un­der the EU’s Glob­al Gate­way In­vest­ment Agen­da, adopt­ed by the lead­ers at the EU-CELAC Sum­mit of 2023.

“Of course, the op­por­tu­ni­ties go both ways as, the Eu­ro­pean Union wish­es to di­ver­si­fy its en­er­gy sources and hap­pi­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go is blessed with re­sources that could be sus­tain­ably de­vel­oped and cap­i­talised, in co­op­er­a­tion with EU stake­hold­ers, such as wind and sun as en­er­gy sources and the pro­duc­tion of green hy­dro­gen.”

In terms of dig­i­tal con­nec­tiv­i­ty, Cavendish said the EU is ap­proach­ing a deep­er lev­el of ex­change with the ex­ten­sion of the su­per-con­nec­tiv­i­ty ca­ble, BEL­LA, an acronym for Bring­ing the Link be­tween Eu­rope and Latin Amer­i­ca’.

He ex­plained, “The ob­jec­tive of the ca­ble is to con­nect Ed­u­ca­tion­al and Re­search Net­works (ERNs), for ex­am­ple, the Uni­ver­si­ty of West In­dies in Trinidad and To­ba­go to the third lev­el in Eu­rope, Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean re­gion and vice ver­sa.”

Cavendish said Eu­rope Day is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cel­e­brate and re­flect on the Eu­ro­pean Union’s core val­ues of peace, uni­ty, open­ness and trans­paren­cy which are shared with T&T.

“The EU val­ues, tremen­dous­ly, the ex­cel­lent part­ner­ship that has de­vel­oped be­tween this amaz­ing twin is­land state and our­selves,” he said.

“As I stat­ed ear­li­er, we are now in our 50th year of suc­cess­ful part­ner­ship. Con­sid­er how much part­ner­ship is al­ready ex­pressed through the sim­i­lar­i­ty of our re­spec­tive mot­tos—the EU’s mot­to is ‘Unit­ed in di­ver­si­ty’ and T&T’s mot­to is ‘To­geth­er We As­pire, To­geth­er We Achieve’.”

Not­ing that 2025 is the 75th an­niver­sary of the Schu­man De­c­la­ra­tion, he said, “On this day in 1950, 75 years ago, Robert Schu­man, then-French Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, gave an his­toric speech in which he pro­posed a new form of po­lit­i­cal co­op­er­a­tion for Eu­rope that would make war be­tween the na­tions of the con­ti­nent un­think­able.

“Re­gret­tably, we have wars be­tween the na­tions of the con­ti­nent and else­where. In these tur­bu­lent times, it is ev­i­dent that peace should nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed.”

Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and Cari­com Sean Sobers said in too many en­vi­ron­ments peace and uni­ty are elu­sive con­cepts and re­mote pos­si­bil­i­ties.

“Where and when cir­cum­stances per­mit, we must cel­e­brate the peace and good re­la­tions and share the ex­pe­ri­ence as wide­ly as pos­si­ble,” he said.

“Here in Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have ac­com­plished some­thing that is the en­vy of more ma­ture democ­ra­cies around the world, a peace­ful gen­er­al elec­tion and a seam­less trans­fer of pow­er. For these we are tru­ly thank­ful.”

Sobers said it is the vi­sion and in­tent of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to strength­en this coun­try’s part­ner­ship with the Eu­ro­pean con­ti­nent in a new green age of tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

“The Prime Min­is­ter com­mends and has high­light­ed the great leaps with re­new­able tech­nol­o­gy with­in Eu­rope and the pro­mo­tion of AI tech­nol­o­gy,” he said.

“As we cel­e­brate our friend­ship, as we ac­knowl­edge our past achieve­ments, I an­nounce that we must forge a path to­geth­er to meet the new chal­lenges of our glob­al econ­o­my.”