To­day, we cel­e­brate Eu­rope Day, which marks the an­niver­sary of the Schu­man De­c­la­ra­tion.

On May 9, 1950, French For­eign Min­is­ter Robert Schu­man set out a vi­sion for deep­er co­op­er­a­tion in Eu­rope. His de­c­la­ra­tion paved the way for an un­prece­dent­ed project of peace, in­te­gra­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty—the foun­da­tion of what is to­day the Eu­ro­pean Union.

Eu­rope was built on a promise: free­dom, equal­i­ty and democ­ra­cy. To­day, in a world marked by grow­ing con­flicts and eco­nom­ic pres­sures, we must con­tin­ue to de­fend these val­ues.

From sup­port to Ukraine to strength­en­ing de­fence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, from fight­ing dis­in­for­ma­tion to up­hold­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law, Eu­rope re­mains com­mit­ted to stand as a pil­lar of sta­bil­i­ty.

The Eu­ro­pean Union brings to­geth­er 27 coun­tries and 450 mil­lion peo­ple, di­verse in cul­ture, lan­guage and his­to­ry, yet unit­ed by a shared com­mit­ment to peace, democ­ra­cy and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment.

But Eu­rope Day is not on­ly about who we are. It is al­so about what we do—with part­ners like Trinidad and To­ba­go—to pro­mote a fair­er, safer and more sus­tain­able world.

Last year, we cel­e­brat­ed 50 years of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween T&T and the EU. This year, we mark an­oth­er mile­stone: 50 years since the es­tab­lish­ment of the EU Del­e­ga­tion in Port-of-Spain.

Over time, our part­ner­ship has grown far be­yond tra­di­tion­al diplo­ma­cy.

To­day, we work to­geth­er across a wide range of ar­eas—from en­er­gy and cli­mate ac­tion to dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, se­cu­ri­ty, gov­er­nance, trade and in­vest­ment, ed­u­ca­tion and re­search.

This is a part­ner­ship built on trust, shared val­ues and mu­tu­al re­spect.

T&T is cur­rent­ly ben­e­fit­ing from sev­er­al EU re­gion­al pro­grammes sup­port­ing re­new­able en­er­gy, cli­mate adap­ta­tion, dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion, pri­vate sec­tor de­vel­op­ment, gov­er­nance, dig­i­tal­i­sa­tion, se­cu­ri­ty and hu­man de­vel­op­ment. Sev­er­al new re­gion­al ini­tia­tives are ex­pect­ed to roll out in the com­ing year.

At the same time, we are work­ing to mo­bilise new Eu­ro­pean in­vest­ments that are aligned with the EU Glob­al Gate­way In­vest­ment agen­da and the na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

These ef­forts re­flect the depth of our co­op­er­a­tion and our shared am­bi­tion for a more in­clu­sive and sus­tain­able fu­ture.

We pur­sue this work as “Team Eu­rope”—bring­ing to­geth­er the Eu­ro­pean Union and its Mem­ber States to pool ex­per­tise, re­sources and im­pact.

We are al­so deep­en­ing our po­lit­i­cal di­a­logue. The sign­ing of the Samoa Agree­ment in 2024 opened a new chap­ter in re­la­tions be­tween the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pa­cif­ic coun­tries.

I am par­tic­u­lar­ly pleased that Min­is­ter Sean Sobers has agreed to host a first Part­ner­ship Di­a­logue un­der this Samoa frame­work be­fore the end of the year.

Ear­li­er this year, the EU re­moved T&T from its list of non-co­op­er­a­tive ju­ris­dic­tions for tax pur­pos­es—the out­come of strong col­lab­o­ra­tion and sus­tained com­mit­ment. Let me warm­ly con­grat­u­late T&T on this achieve­ment.

The CAR­I­FO­RUM–EU Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment of­fers valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ties, giv­ing du­ty—and quo­ta-free ac­cess to the Eu­ro­pean mar­ket for the busi­ness­es of T&T. We are com­mit­ted to mak­ing an even greater use of this agree­ment for the ben­e­fit of our economies and our peo­ple.

Our part­ner­ship al­so ex­tends to the glob­al stage. We share a strong com­mit­ment to mul­ti­lat­er­al­ism and work close­ly to­geth­er in in­ter­na­tion­al fo­ra, like the Unit­ed Na­tions, as well as at the re­gion­al lev­el, as demon­strat­ed by the CELAC-EU Sum­mit of last No­vem­ber.

An­oth­er di­men­sion of our co­op­er­a­tion is cul­tur­al. Thir­ty years ago, the Eu­ro­pean Film Fes­ti­val was launched in T&T.

Just a few days ago, we opened this year’s edi­tion of the fes­ti­val, a par­tic­u­lar­ly rich one, fea­tur­ing nine films from nine Eu­ro­pean coun­tries.

The fes­ti­val ends on May 28, and I warm­ly en­cour­age all of T&T to ex­pe­ri­ence this unique cul­tur­al jour­ney in the com­ing days.

We al­so in­vest in peo­ple-to-peo­ple con­nec­tions. Through the Eras­mus pro­gramme, many Trinida­di­an stu­dents and aca­d­e­m­ic pro­fes­sion­als have stud­ied, trained and built last­ing con­nec­tions in Eu­rope.

On a more per­son­al note, I feel tru­ly priv­i­leged to be in T&T. I have dis­cov­ered not on­ly its vi­brant cul­ture (in par­tic­u­lar through my par­tic­i­pa­tion in Car­ni­val), its beau­ti­ful land­scapes, the amaz­ing food, but above all, its peo­ple.

From my very first days here, I have been touched by the warmth, gen­eros­i­ty and open­ness that de­fine this coun­try. This spir­it of wel­come re­flects, in many ways, the strength of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and the Eu­ro­pean Union.

Long live the friend­ship be­tween the EU and T&T!