The View From Europe

In a week’s time Caribbean Market Place, the Caribbean Hotels and Tourism Association’s (CHTA) premier annual business event will take place in Nassau.

Most years Caribbean governments and their counterparts from beyond the region hold policy level encounters at which they discuss matters of common interest.

Ever since President Castro first announced that Cuba was embarking on a far-reaching process of economic change there have been concerns about the implications this may have for the rest of the region.

The UK Treasury’s failure to reform Britain’s Air Passenger Duty (APD) leaves the Caribbean’s relations with the United Kingdom in a difficult place. After

With the present Eurozone on the point of collapse, the world’s developed economies on the brink of a second recession, and a slowing in advanced developing economies such as China and Brazil, the prospects for near term growth in the Caribbean appear bleak.

Since 1964 the Caribbean has received European development assistance. This has been provided, largely unconditionally, on both a regional and national basis to every Caribbean nation, including at times, Cuba.

Sugar no longer gets the coverage it once did. In years past when a development occurred that threatened the industry’s viability, there would have been extensive press and radio coverage, political comment, and a subsequent reaction from Europe and its diplomats.

Every year tourism trade fairs take place in locations from Berlin to Hong Kong.

For the last two weeks a large group of mainly young people have been, quite literally, camping out in the precinct of London’s St Paul’s Cathedral.

On November 29 the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, will present his autumn statement to the UK Parliament. 

Some time early next year the association agreement reached in May between Central America and Europe will come into force.

On October 6, Juliane Kokott, an Advocate General of the European Court of Justice handed down an opinion in a case that brings aviation, the environment, taxation and sovereignty face to face.

Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, scepticism about climate change appears to be gaining wider global credence.

Two separate developments in the last week, both involving China, demonstrate the fundamental ways in which international relationships are changing.

A decade has passed since the world came face to face with Islamic terrorism.

Aviation and tourism are vital components of the Caribbean economy.  They provide employment, foreign exchange and taxes which in turn support schools, hospitals, national security and much more.

Anyone who has read the recent pronouncement by the usually optimistic Director General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, cannot help but conclude that there is no longer the global political will to deliver an all-embracing deal on trade liberalisation.

Trying to conduct a debate through the media on an issue of technical complexity is not wise.

For years, many in the US and Europe have been wishing that Venezuela’s mercurial President, Hugo Chávez, would depart and a more pro-western leader take his place.

Has the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of nations (the ACP) a future beyond 2020, the date that the Cotonou Convention expires?