EU urged to ease travel burden for Guyanese

•  as President Ali raps Schengen visa woes

At a time when more and more countries around the world are seeking closer ties with Guyana, including making access more efficient, President Dr Irfaan Ali on Wednesday rapped the European Union (EU), saying that it needed to modernise its visa application process to make the process easier for Guyanese travellers.

Speaking at the Caribbean Tourism Organization’s State of the Tourism Industry Conference (SOTIC) 2026, being held in Georgetown, the Head of State lamented the continued troubles Guyanese are forced to endure in order to travel to European countries, especially the Schengen region.

“We can’t build partnerships and friendships like that, where people have to spend four days to get a visa before they travel to your country. And you want to host international conferences, so you invite us to all of the beautiful conferences that we want to attend, but we have to invest four days before we get the visa to attend… The modern world can’t be that complicated,” President Ali declared.

For years, Guyana has been pushing for visa-free access to Europe’s Schengen area, thus allowing for seamless travel across 29 European countries – 25 of which are Member States of the EU.

Currently, Schengen visas are being processed at the French Embassy in Georgetown but only for travellers heading to France. Guyanese travelling to other Schengen countries have to go to Suriname to obtain a visa – something which President Ali believes should no longer be the case.

“We have to travel to Trinidad and Suriname to get biometrics to do [the visa]. In a day of digitisation and AI, we have the EU that is operating from a Stone Age kind of operation, and they’re our friends, we can tell them frankly… You can get the biometrics of anybody and know if they’re a criminal or if they’re a good person in a couple of seconds,” he asserted.

At the time, the Guyanese Head of State was outlining to Caribbean stakeholders the importance of easy access to travel between countries, noting that other regions around the world have already moved in this direction.

“You can move to Greece, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, China, and the Philippines, then within the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) – Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). That entire circuit [has] flights almost every hour, between one hour and two and a half, three hours. That is how connected, and they have built the infrastructure to create that ecosystem.”

“The same thing is happening in Latin America: an ecosystem through infrastructure is being created with connectivity. It’s the same thing with the European Union, the ecosystem that is being created. [But] the Middle East is ahead of them because you have the electronic visas that are easy to get. Here, the European Union is still backward in this region,” the Guyanese leader posited.

Just last week, Guyana’s Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Ministry announced that Guyanese passport holders travelling to Saudi Arabia will now benefit from a visa on arrival or an electronic visa (e-visa).

Previously, Guyanese were required to go through an embassy or agent to obtain a visa before travelling to the Middle Eastern country or have a valid United States (US), United Kingdom (UK) or Schengen visa in order to qualify for a visa on arrival or electronic visa (e-visa).

But through intensified bilateral relations between Guyana and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Guyanese will no longer need to obtain the visa beforehand.

This is one of a series of countries around the world that have lifted visa requirements for Guyanese passport holders in recent years.

Back in November 2022, the United Kingdom lifted the visa requirement for Guyanese travellers.

At the time, President Ali had disclosed that at least five European countries have agreed to support Guyana’s bid for visa-free travel to the Schengen region, but no further progress on this has been reported.

However, the opening of the French Embassy in Georgetown in September last year has resulted in the number of Schengen visas issued being doubled, moving from about 150 to more than 350.

In May, French Ambassador to Guyana, Olivier Plançon, had assured that his office is working to enhance the visa application and issuance process here, which he says comes with a lot of diplomatic complexity.

“Please also be mindful of the fact that the Schengen visa is a gateway to no less than 27 countries, and our visa policy has to be coordinated with all of them actually. That being said, we are constantly striving to streamline the visa issuance process, and we are well aware that improvements are needed and expected,” Ambassador Plançon noted.

Previously, the French diplomat had explained that the long-term goal is visa-free travel between the two countries and the wider European Union.