RESTRICTED
PRIORITY
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political, commercial and tourism ties with Western Europe. Bermudians travel frequently to Europe. When the Premier, John
Swan, raised the matter on his visit to London in 1988, Sir G
Howe agreed to delegate to the Government of Bermuda authority to negotiate bilateral visa abolition arrangements with EC states; HMG's role would be passive and limited to providing names of officials and contacts. A Bermuda Cabinet portfolio for legislative and delegated affares was created. To date, other than the UK, five EC states (Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and, most recently, Portugal) have agreed to visa-free arrangements for Bermudian BDTC passports. Denmark, France and the FRG have all recently confirmed that they continue to require visas, and there seems little prospect of the Bermuda government achieving further success unless we take a
more active role by making overtures on their behalf.
However,
3. It remains our intention that Bermuda should take the lead in negotiating bilateral abolition arrangements, but if approached by their negotiators for help you should, in introducing them to the appropriate contacts in your host government, make the following points: -
the UK Government has been approached by the government of Bermuda about the requirement for visas which some EC governments continue to impose on holders of BDTC passports;
among the UK's Caribbean Atlantic DTS, Bermuda is the wealthiest, and has much the closest political and economic ties with Western Europe. She is keen to strengthen these ties still further. Given the high average per capita income of the
Territory's population, the volume of Bermuda travel to Western
Europe is likely to increase during the 1990s;
-
in late 1988 we delegated to the government of Bermuda authority to negotiate bilateral visa abolition agreements with EC governments. Other than the UK, five EC states (Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Portugal) are content to
;