Stranded EU nationals ‘closer to home’

An estimated 140 European Union nationals stranded in Barbados are set to return home tomorrow via special charter flights, said EU Ambassador Daniela Tramacere this afternoon.

She told journalists during a virtual press briefing that a chartered Condor flight left Barbados at 4:45 p.m. today, while another flight was scheduled to leave tomorrow to transport the remaining numbers to Frankfurt, Germany.

The EU visitors had been unable to return home due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the majority of commercial flights cancelled.

Along with tourists stranded in Barbados, Europeans in Anguilla, Antigua, Dominica, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada will also be returning home.

Regional carrier LIAT is being used for ‘feeder flights’ to transport citizens from the Eastern Caribbean islands to Barbados.

LIAT flights will leave Antigua and stop in Dominica; another will depart Anguilla and pass through St Lucia, while the final flight would leave Grenada and stop in St Vincent before landing in Barbados.

The three LIAT flights are only reserved for EU passengers who would be transferred from the arriving LIAT plane straight to the Condor flight once they land at the Grantley Adams International Airport, Ambassador Tramacere told reporters.

She said while today’s flight would make a stop in Tobago before heading to Frankfurt, the second and final chartered flight tomorrow would fly directly to Frankfurt.

The combined flights can carry a maximum of 506 passengers.

EU citizens from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Holland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, are among those stranded in the Caribbean.

She said the initiative had been triggered by the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism, an initiative to constitute a framework for cooperation in disaster preparedness, prevention and response.

Ambassador Tramacere said: “This mechanism allows us to have flights being sent to other countries to rescue European citizens when commercial flights are not available anymore.

“This mechanism is triggered by any of our member states when they have a substantial number of citizens [in need] and it is 75 per cent paid by the EU. In this part of the world we have a huge number of tourists from Europe who are dispersed among the Eastern Caribbean islands.”

She pointed out that many of the visitors were from Germany.

She explained that EU citizens could not fly to the US as they were not allowed, while there were only few flights available to Canada.

Tramacere admitted that organizing the roundup of EU citizens had been a difficult exercise as there were no embassies for many of those countries in the Caribbean.

She thanked the region’s governments for their role in making the initiative possible.

“I would really like to take this opportunity to thank not only the Barbadian Government, but also the other Eastern Caribbean countries from which we are flying feeder flights because without their support and their help we wouldn’t have made it,” she said.

Tramacere also praised LIAT for providing the feeder flights, describing the process as “very easy”, while adding there had been “absolute cooperation”.

She said all of the visitors were healthy and had shown no symptoms of COVID-19.

It is estimated that around the world there are 200,000 stranded EU citizens, with 60,000 in the Americas.

The EU envoy said the EU would be supporting the health systems of CARPHA [Caribbean Public Health Agency] members through an eight million euro grant to provide immediate materials for doctors and nurses, test kits and medical equipment.
randybennett@barbadostoday.bb