Governor of Anguilla, Alistair Harrison, has expressed the hope that there will be an easy resolution to the requirement for Anguillians travelling to St. Martin to obtain a French visa.
The matter was discussed there on Friday last week at a meeting between officials from Anguilla and St. Martin. As stated in a press release, published elsewhere in this edition of The Anguillian, an agreement was reached to put the measure on hold. It was to have taken effect on Monday, May 21.
“We were very courteously and very promptly received by The Prefect in St. Martin, who is my opposite number, and the President of the Collectivity, who is roughly the opposite of the Chief Minister,” the Governor told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday this week. “Broadly speaking, we had a delegation from the French side that matched the two parts of the delegation from my office and from the Government and public servants.
“The Prefect made it clear that he wanted to be helpful, and he was ready to suspend further the imposition of the visa requirement while the issue is being sorted out. But he also made it clear that the decree came from Parisso he couldn’t unilaterally refuse to implement it. And it is part of the bigger picture of the visa requirement for anybody travelling in what is known as the Schengen area, which is part of the European Union, who is not from the Schengen area or from the rest of the EU.”
Governor Harrison explained that the Schengen area was started some years ago and at the time included all of the European Union, except Britain and Ireland and Norwaywhich have their own travel area.
“I think it now still includes most of the EU and that some of the newer members of the EU are not part if it,” he continued. “The idea of the Schengen area is that you fly intoParisfromSt. Martin, let’s say. You can then travel throughout Germany,Italy,Belgiumand theNetherlands, without any further boarder controls. They made one big single travel area, but what they found, unfortunately, is that it is quite difficult to keep a travel area of that size secure. There were British doubts about whether that would be possible that led us not to join the Schengen area when it was formed, I think, about 15, 20 years ago.
“And so they are tightening up on the visas for non-Schengen nationals. As I said, that doesn’t apply to other EU countries because, obviously, anybody who is British has the right of free travel throughout the European Union, to show their passport and don’t have to have a visa. This is really a definitional problem [for] citizens of the Overseas Territories and, for those purposes, British. The answer of course is yes and no. Anguilla is a British territory, but it is equally not part of the EU…; but we would argue that Anguillians should have free access into the EU including the Schengen area…”
Mr. Harrison gave this assurance: “We are working very closely with the authorities in St. Martin…I think it will take a little longer to resolve, than it might have done, because we have just had a change of President and hence a change of Ministers in Paris. They are in the middle of their legislative elections, following the presidential elections. So it might be a bit difficult to tidy it up…But I think what we would like to see is a permanent solution that allows any national of a British Overseas Territory…[including Anguilla] to travel freely throughout the Schengen area.
“A point that the Chief Minister made, which I think was very firmly registered by the St. Martin authorities…, is that if you have a BOTC passport, what is normally known as an Anguillian passport, you are entitled also to a British passport… and in those circumstances you would be able to travel without a visa to French St. Martin.”
Governor Harrison observed that there was quite a bit of bureaucratic work still to be done, “but there was great goodwill from the St. Martin authorities who suggested that we should meet more frequently to discuss wider issues of cooperation.” He said that he and the Chief Minister welcomed the suggestion and hoped to welcome the St. Martin delegation to Anguilla in the next few weeks.
“It was a great positive meeting, and we managed to get immediate agreement to the suspension of the requirement and to work on a permanent solution which I very much hope we can find very soon,” he added.
