JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Thursday, July 24, 2025

T&T excited over visa-free travel to Europe

by

20150527

T&T cit­i­zens greet­ed with joy the news that T&T Am­bas­sador to Bel­gium Mar­garet Al­li­son King-Rousseau will sign an agree­ment to­day to al­low this coun­try's na­tion­als to trav­el visa free to much of Eu­rope.For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an con­firmed, in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, that there will be a meet­ing to­day, dur­ing which an agree­ment will be signed per­mit­ting visa-free trav­el to the 26 coun­tries of the Schen­gen area in Eu­rope.

The agree­ment will be signed at the mar­gin of the EU-African Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic Min­is­te­r­i­al meet­ing tak­ing place in Brus­sels. "I ex­pect that to­mor­row (to­day) we will sign an agree­ment with the Eu­ro­pean Union on this mat­ter," Dook­er­an said.He re­fused to give fur­ther de­tails on the is­sue, pre­fer­ring to wait un­til the ink had dried on the agree­ment.

Cit­i­zens were less mod­est in their com­ments, how­ev­er, as many shared their ex­cite­ment on so­cial me­dia.In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, T&T na­tion­al Kris­tle Lewis said it was great news."I think it would be great for cit­i­zens to be able to vis­it oth­er parts of Eu­rope with­out a visa. It would def­i­nite­ly al­low cit­i­zens the flex­i­bil­i­ty of va­ca­tions else­where as com­pared to the tra­di­tion­al US and Caribbean."

Stu­dent Zi­co Co­zi­er said he was re­al­ly ex­cit­ed. "When I stud­ied in France I made friends from around the world, most of whom are still liv­ing in dif­fer­ent parts of Eu­rope. "When I came back home, I didn't think I would be vis­it­ing Eu­rope again for sev­er­al years. But now that trav­el­ling there seems has­sle free, I may be able to plan a trip quite soon."

Yes­ter­day, the Eu­ro­pean Union Del­e­ga­tion to T&T an­nounced the agree­ment.In a re­lease, the del­e­ga­tion said the agree­ment al­lowed cit­i­zens of T&T to vis­it Schen­gen area coun­tries for a short stay of up to 90 days with­out re­quir­ing a visa, as long as the pur­pose of the vis­it was not to en­gage in paid ac­tiv­i­ty.

The agree­ment is pro­vi­sion­al­ly ap­plied from the date of the sig­na­ture, in or­der to al­low cit­i­zens to ben­e­fit from the visa-free trav­el as soon as pos­si­ble. Trinidad and To­ba­go joins eight oth­er Caribbean coun­tries that en­joy visa-free trav­el to Eu­rope.Charge d'Af­faires of the Eu­ro­pean Union Del­e­ga­tion to T&T, Daniela Tra­macere, wel­comed the sign­ing and hailed it as a great de­vel­op­ment.

"We are pleased to be able to an­nounce to­day that TT cit­i­zens can now trav­el to the Schen­gen coun­tries in Eu­rope visa free. We know that there are many who have been wait­ing for this de­vel­op­ment to plan their trips to Eu­rope and we are hap­py to wel­come them to vis­it. The doors to Eu­rope are wide open," Tra­macere said in a re­lease.

All the visa-waived trav­eller must do on ar­riv­ing in Eu­rope is to present a valid pass­port at the point of en­try in­to any one of the Schen­gen coun­tries.The EU del­e­ga­tion said the agree­ment cov­ered all cat­e­gories of trav­ellers, such as or­di­nary, diplo­mat­ic, ser­vice/of­fi­cial and spe­cial pass­port hold­ers, ex­cept for the cat­e­go­ry of per­sons trav­el­ling to car­ry out paid ac­tiv­i­ty.

"In this case, each coun­try of des­ti­na­tion in Eu­rope re­mains free to im­pose the visa re­quire­ment in ac­cor­dance with its ap­plic­a­ble leg­is­la­tion."It not­ed that on­ly cit­i­zens of T&T were el­i­gi­ble for the waiv­er. "Cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries who are res­i­dent in T&T are not sub­ject to this agree­ment and should abide by the visa re­quire­ments of their coun­try of cit­i­zen­ship.

In 2012, the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion, which reg­u­lar­ly re­views its visa arrange­ments, pro­posed to add five Caribbean coun­tries, name­ly Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Saint Lu­cia, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as ten Pa­cif­ic is­lands and Tim­or-Leste to the list of third coun­tries and ter­ri­to­ries whose na­tion­als would be ex­empt from visa oblig­a­tions.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, the Ba­hamas, Bar­ba­dos and Saint Kitts and Nevis were grant­ed visa-free trav­el a few years ear­li­er.

MORE IN­FO

The Schen­gen area in Eu­rope in­cludes France, Spain, Aus­tria, Bel­gium, Czech Re­pub­lic, Den­mark, Fin­land, Es­to­nia, Ger­many, Greece, Hun­gary, Nor­way, Ice­land, Italy, Latvia, Liecht­en­stein, Lithua­nia, Lux­em­bourg, Mal­ta, Nether­lands, Poland, Por­tu­gal, Slo­va­kia, Slove­nia, Swe­den and Switzer­land. In ad­di­tion, trav­ellers will be able to trav­el visa free to the three Eu­ro­pean mi­cro-states, Mona­co, San Mari­no, and Vat­i­can City.

TT trav­ellers to Ire­land and the UK were al­ready able to vis­it these coun­tries for short stays with­out a visa even be­fore this visa waiv­er agree­ment was signed. Bul­gar­ia, Croa­t­ia, Cyprus and Ro­ma­nia are legal­ly bound to join the Schen­gen Area. Oth­er, non-Caribbean na­tions ex­pect­ed to be al­lowed visa-free trav­el to the Schen­gen area fol­low­ing to­day's agree­ment in­clude Pa­cif­ic Is­lands (Kiri­bati, the Mar­shall Is­lands, Mi­crone­sia, Nau­ru, Palau, Samoa, the Solomon Is­lands, Ton­ga, Tu­valu and Van­u­atu) and Tim­or-Leste.

The Schen­gen area most­ly func­tions as a sin­gle coun­try for in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el pur­pos­es, with a com­mon visa pol­i­cy. The area is named af­ter the Schen­gen Agree­ment which was signed in 1985 in the vil­lage of Schen­gen in Lux­em­bourg.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored