Discussions underway for South American passport - Harmon

Discussions underway for South American passport – Harmon

Jun 23, 2016 News

By Jarryl Bryan

The government will be sending a two-member delegation to attend meetings with the working group

Minister of State,
Joseph Harmon

of South American citizenship in Ecuador. The two officials are Darius Frank, Foreign Service Officer for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and Carol Primo, head of the immigration support services department of Citizenship.
On the agenda will be how to remove visa restrictions on travel within the South American continent.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon said, “(The meetings) will be held in Ecuador over two days from June 28.”
“The meeting will continue work started towards the development of a plan for South American citizenship, mobility, identity and rights.”
“Discussions will also commence on a common South American passport and council of legal assistance mechanism. There are discussions on these issues. We have a Caricom passport and therefore these are discussions.”
He noted that Guyana is a member of the Union of South America Nations (UNASUR), along with several other South American international organisations. Harmon also pointed out that Guyana is a signatory to several treaties.
He pointed out that these discussions will not necessarily include Guyanese receiving a new passport, but would allow for the CARICOM passport holders (including Guyanese) to travel to these other countries without the necessity of visas. However, he hastened to add that this was his thinking on the matter.
“What I can say is that these are discussions taking place on citizenship. You know that Guyana borders other South American countries. We border Brazil, Venezuela, and Suriname and therefore issues which affect those countries, particularly citizenship, immigration and so on are issues which we have to pay attention to.”
“So any treaties which involve South American countries, we will have to be aware of. So this conference will deal with some of those issues. But I don’t anticipate, from the terms and conditions that I have seen, that they will come out with a blue print to say by 2017 that you will have these passports.”
Specifically, the delegation will be going to the CARIFORUM/CARICOM meeting on the implementation of the 10th EU Development Fund Single Market and Economic Integration program. Back in 2012, three financing agreements had been signed that were valued at some US$110M
The South American Citizenship Programme has its genesis at the Sixth Summit of UNASUR, held in Lima, Peru, in 2012. The Summit had concluded with a firm proposal to create a single South American citizenship.
In February, Secretary-General of UNASUR, Ernesto Samper, had invited President David Granger to join the South American Defence Council to have an input on issues of Security and Defence in relation to small States and the Caribbean and its implications on the whole region.
Currently, Guyanese enjoy visa free travel to South American countries like Brazil, Suriname, Ecuador, and Peru (for tourism purposes). Other countries, such as Venezuela and Chile do not require visas once the traveler is the holder of diplomatic passports.

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