Perifere EU-gebieden vragen om extra steun van Brussel (en)

The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Paulino Rivero, closed the First Forum for Outermost Europe on Friday by calling for greater flexibility in the administration of European funding, as well as greater support for traditional products and help in combating unemployment.

Rivero defended the “new strategic role that the most distant regions of Europe must play... from the point of view of security... in controlling illegal immigration in their geographical setting, and as platforms for cooperation and development with neighbouring countries”.

"The outermost regions need Europe, but Europe also needs the outermost regions", said Rivero as he revealed the conclusions of the two-day meeting in Brussels, attended by more than 400 representatives from these nine regions which, in addition to the Canary Islands, are the Azores and Madeira (Portugal), and French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Réunion (France).

He added that "our problems are structural, not temporary".

For this reason, he called on the European Commission to produce a document containing the results of the forum "as soon as possible", in order to serve as a basis for producing the new EU financial perspectives for the 2014-2020 period.

The President of the Canary Islands asked for the structural funds for the outermost regions to be maintained in the new budgets, as well as for compensation for the loss of competitiveness resulting from EU trade agreements with third countries.

He also urged the EU to produce a special training and employment plan for the outermost regions, given their high unemployment rate of around 30%.

Looking to the future, he suggested that advanced infrastructure and research networks be encouraged in these regions and that the temporary nature of tax incentives be lifted, to prevent "having to periodically re-negotiate them".

At the start of the forum, the representatives of the Spanish Presidency of the EU, the Commission and the European Parliament restated their commitment to the interests and needs of these regions, which although far-flung geographically, form an integral part of the EU and receive special treatment.

Spain's Secretary of State for the EU, Diego López Garrido, confirmed that the Spanish Presidency will continue to work in the interests of the outermost regions within the new EU financial perspectives and in implementing the economic growth strategy, Europe 2020, in order to ensure that they “continue to have a unique, central and strategic position" in EU policies.