With 589 votes against 22 and 16 abstentions, MEPs adopted their position on Commission´s strategy for outermost regions.
Individual action plans and resources
Parliamentarians want EU policy to focus more on competitiveness and provide for a tailor-made approach reflecting the needs of each outermost region as current policies do not consider their specificities sufficiently. They believe it requires better coordination between local, regional, national and EU levels.
MEPs want the Commission to come up with a series of tailored-made action plans to implement this strategy and support it with adequate financial resources. In the current crisis and inflation-ridden context, MEPs want to adjust state aid rules for outermost regions and increase aid thresholds to reflect additional operating costs faced by enterprises in these areas. They also want the Commission to examine special treatment of outermost regions when it comes to state aid for airport, port and road infrastructure to enhance regional mobility.
Investing in people
Outermost regions face geographical challenges such as remoteness, small size or harsh climate, which are coupled with negative social and economic consequences. These include high levels of unemployed young people and early school leavers, more people at risk of poverty and lower GDP per inhabitant. Investments in people should address these issues. MEPs urge the Commission and the member states to ensure access to essential services in the outermost regions and call on them to use funds available under Multiannual Financial Framework (MMF) 2021-2027 and Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) to fight youth unemployment and brain drain. Commission should also come up with training and skills development activities, motivating young people to work in traditional sectors such as agriculture and fisheries. MEPs also want to maintain compensatory POSEI scheme in agriculture, helping these regions to overcome their challenges, while extending it to fisheries, transport, energy and other sectors.
Sustainable tourism and space activities
Besides blue and circular economy, MEPs also support sustainable tourism in the outermost regions, balancing tourism development with biodiversity protection. They call on the Commission to set up a European Tourism Agency with offices in each of the outermost regions’ geographical areas, while supporting pilot projects for outermost destinations in the tourism sector. Given the outermost regions´ vulnerability to climate change and natural disasters, MEPs suggests to consider creation of an EU Climate Change Adaptation Fund to help prepare their infrastructure and improve their resilience to climate shocks.
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The text of the report also states that outermost regions have both location and infrastructure to ensure EU’s access to space. MEPs call on the Commission to support national plans to relaunch space activities and coordinate between EU funds for space policy and regional development. This should provide support to ecosystems developing around the infrastructures in French Guiana and the Azores while boosting research and innovation in the outermost regions.
Background
Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (article 349) provides for specific supportive measures for EU outermost regions such as tailored application of EU law and access to EU programmes. There are nine EU territories with this special status located in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, in the Caribbean basin and in South America, including Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion and Saint-Martin (France), the Azores and Madeira (Portugal) and the Canary Islands (Spain).
More information: European Parliament
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