The View from Europe

Stabroek News

"The View from Europe
The Caribbean needs to reposition itself in relation to Europe
By David Jessop (Executive Director of the Caribbean Council for Europe)
Sunday, January 29th 2006


In May 2004 the European Union (EU) grew from a grouping of fifteen to twenty-five member states. In 2008, Romania and Bulgaria will join the EU. It is also possible but hugely controversial that at some future date Turkey may become a member.

For the Caribbean what this means is that it must tear up its map of Europe. Until quite recently even in a Europe of fifteen, four nations - the United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands and France - that know the region intimately could sometimes exercise a positive influence. But today Europe has become an entity in which almost any issue that relates to the Caribbean now evinces either questions from the majority of member states or disinterest."