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.

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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.