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Thursday, August 14, 2025

European Union Visitors Programme gives T&T opportunity to deepen EU ties

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30 days ago
20250715
Head of the European Union Visitors Programme Unit Andreas Kettis, centre, with participants and team members at the European Parliament, alongside Guardian Media’s Dareece Polo, fifth from right.

Head of the European Union Visitors Programme Unit Andreas Kettis, centre, with participants and team members at the European Parliament, alongside Guardian Media’s Dareece Polo, fifth from right.

Courtesy EU Delegation

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

This week, T&T has an op­por­tu­ni­ty to put its na­tion­al con­cerns on the radar of Eu­ro­pean de­ci­sion-mak­ers, as it strength­ens diplo­mat­ic and eco­nom­ic ties with the Eu­ro­pean Union through par­tic­i­pa­tion in the Eu­ro­pean Union Vis­i­tors Pro­gramme (EU­VP).

The ini­tia­tive of­fers par­tic­i­pants ac­cess to key EU in­sti­tu­tions and de­ci­sion-mak­ers, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment.

This op­por­tu­ni­ty is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant, giv­en the EU’s sta­tus as one of T&T’s largest trad­ing part­ners, par­tic­u­lar­ly in petro­chem­i­cals and am­mo­nia. T&T is a ma­jor ex­porter of am­mo­nia to the EU, an es­sen­tial in­put for the re­gion’s agri­cul­ture and in­dus­tri­al sec­tors.

The wider trade re­la­tion­ship is framed by the CAR­I­FO­RUM–EU Eco­nom­ic Part­ner­ship Agree­ment (EPA), signed in 2008. The agree­ment grants du­ty-free, quo­ta-free ac­cess to EU mar­kets for most Caribbean goods and en­cour­ages in­vest­ment and trade in ser­vices. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, EU sup­port to T&T fo­cus­es on cli­mate re­silience, re­new­able en­er­gy, hu­man rights and jus­tice re­form, ed­u­ca­tion, in­no­va­tion, and strength­en­ing civ­il so­ci­ety and gov­er­nance.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Head of the EU­VP Unit An­dreas Ket­tis ac­knowl­edged that Caribbean na­tions, out­side of Ja­maica, re­main un­der-rep­re­sent­ed in the pro­gramme, but said ef­forts are un­der­way to ex­pand re­gion­al par­tic­i­pa­tion.

“We want to give this op­por­tu­ni­ty to peo­ple around the globe. No mat­ter how far away your coun­try might be, you are al­ways wel­come to vis­it us and un­der­stand how this unique project for peace and pros­per­i­ty in Eu­rope is work­ing,” Ket­tis said.

“Of course, there are pri­or­i­ty re­gions and coun­tries; it de­pends al­so on the cur­rent geopo­lit­i­cal con­text, but it (ex­pan­sion) will come soon­er or lat­er. Every cor­ner of the world in­ter­ests us, and we would like very much to de­vel­op fur­ther our co­op­er­a­tion and re­la­tion­ships,” he added.

Ket­tis ex­plained that the EU­VP in­vites se­lect­ed in­di­vid­u­als de­scribed as “movers and shak­ers” from civ­il so­ci­ety, the me­dia, gov­ern­ment, and acad­e­mia for a one-week study vis­it to Brus­sels, Bel­gium or Stras­bourg, France.

The pro­gramme aims to fos­ter peo­ple-to-peo­ple diplo­ma­cy and of­fer first­hand in­sight in­to how EU in­sti­tu­tions and poli­cies func­tion.

“Par­tic­i­pants have to be iden­ti­fied and nom­i­nat­ed by the EU del­e­ga­tion on the ground. We then as­sess, pri­ori­tise and in­vite them to Brus­sels or Stras­bourg,” he ex­plained, not­ing there is no di­rect ap­pli­ca­tion process.

The EU­VP is cur­rent­ly be­ing re­formed to re­flect shift­ing glob­al pri­or­i­ties, with a fo­cus on is­sues such as cli­mate change, women’s em­pow­er­ment, and build­ing part­ner­ships with Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS), a cat­e­go­ry that in­cludes T&T.

Ket­tis em­pha­sised the EU’s will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate more close­ly with the Caribbean in re­spond­ing to the glob­al cli­mate cri­sis.

Par­tic­i­pants are al­so ex­pect­ed to serve as “am­bas­sadors” for EU-part­ner en­gage­ment, with alum­ni en­cour­aged to re­main in­volved in EU-sup­port­ed events and ac­tiv­i­ties in their home coun­tries.

“You will be the first stake­hold­ers for our EU em­bassies on the ground,” Ket­tis said, out­lin­ing post-vis­it en­gage­ment through con­fer­ences and pub­lic diplo­ma­cy ef­forts.

As the EU­VP shifts to­wards greater in­clu­siv­i­ty and the­mat­ic rel­e­vance, Ket­tis ex­pressed hope that more Caribbean voic­es, in­clud­ing those from T&T, will take part in shap­ing the fu­ture of EU–Caribbean co­op­er­a­tion.


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