GUYANESE inability to travel to Schengen – the area comprising 26 European states – without a visa, remains a major concern to the administration, Vice-President and Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Greenidge said on Wednesday.

In 2015, a short-stay visa waiver agreement was signed with the European Union (EU) paving the way for the citizens of Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad & Tobago to travel to the Schengen area without visas. Other CARICOM countries have reportedly benefited from a similar agreement; but approximately three years after Guyana remains on the waiting list to have visa-free travel to the 26 countries of the Schengen area. Minister Greenidge said this concern was raised during a recent meeting here with the European Delegation headed by Ambassador of the European Union Jernej Videti?.

“We have expressed concern, if not alarm, about the treatment of Guyanese as regards the visa- free entry into Schengen; this was a strong point, we believe one it is discriminatory,” the Foreign Affairs Minister told reporters during a press conference at his ministry.

He noted that while many CARICOM countries have been afforded the visa-free-travel system to access the Schengen area, Guyana has not been treated similarly and fairly, although it meets the requirements. “As a matter of fact, as far as we can see from the criteria they use, Guyana falls squarely among those countries that don’t pose a risk; and therefore it should be treated differently,” Minister Greenidge said.

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy / Vice-President of the Commission, Federica Mogherini, has informed the Guyana Government that the matter will not come up come up for discussion until a new Council comes into office. “In other words, kicking it down the road or kicking it into the tall grass, it depends on how you look at it, which makes us extremely unhappy,” Greenidge stated.

That aside, the foreign ministry and the European Union engaged in discussions on bilateral, regional and international issues such as political developments and economic affairs; EU-Guyana and regional development cooperation; consular matters, governance and human rights issues, including the death penalty, children’s rights, women’s rights, LGBTI issues, domestic abuse, prison conditions; trafficking in persons; security, climate change, and regional integration.

The two sides also expressed their continued commitment to an international order based on multilateralism and undertook to continue cooperation in this regard. They welcomed the forthcoming initialling of the Voluntary Partnership on FLEGT (Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade), which will represent a milestone in cooperation on sustainable management of the forests.

The Sixth Round of European Union-Guyana Political Dialogue in the framework of Article 8 of the ACP-EU Cotonou Agreement was also held last Monday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The previous round of the Political Dialogue took place in October, 2017.
Guyana’s delegation was headed by the Foreign Affairs Minister; Director-General, Audrey Jardine-Waddell; Troy Torrington, Director, Multilateral & Global Affairs Department; and other heads of departments within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as representatives of key government ministries.

For the EU, Ambassador Videti? was accompanied by Ambassadors of the UK, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden.
The meeting was intended to allow the exchange of information, as well as to facilitate the establishment of agreed priorities and shared agendas, in particular, by recognising the existing links between the different aspects of the relations between the parties and the various areas of cooperation, as laid down in the Cotonou Agreement.