Hassle-free travel in OECS by August

By the end of this month, a driver’s licence issued in one OECS country would be accepted for use in another for short term visits.

ST GEORGE’S, Grenada, Wednesday January 26, 2011 – By August 1 this year, Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) nationals will require only a driver’s licence or identification card to travel through the sub-region.

The decision was made at the just concluded two-day 52nd meeting of the OECS Authority in Grenada where, according to a communiqué, “Heads of Government acknowledged the pivotal role of free movement of people in the OECS Economic Union as a single financial and economic space”.

They agreed that all actions necessary to give full effect to the free movement regime would be completed by August 1, 2011 at the latest. 

“By that date we expect OECS citizens to be moving in and out of OESC states without restrictions,” host Prime Minister Tillman Thomas said at a press conference yesterday after the meeting. 

“Once you have a driver’s licence or ID card you should not have any difficulty moving. We are removing all the impediments to restrictions.”

According to the communiqué, it was also agreed that by the end of this month, a driver’s licence issued in one OECS country would be accepted for use in another for short term visits.

Another deadline given at the meeting, which was held just three days after the Revised Treaty of Basseterre Establishing the OECS Economic Union came into force, was for domestic law to give effect to that treaty.

Heads of Government agreed that all the necessary legislation would be enacted no later than June 18 this year.

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