SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 9 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms, Elisa Ferreira, has appealed to the outermost regions to maintain their unitary position, as well as their proposals, in defense of cohesion in the face of the “tensions” that may be generated by the future enlargement of the European Union, He considers that the “pressures” to fragment Europe are “very important.”
This was made clear during the associative session of the XXVIII Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions of the European Union, CPRUP, which is taking place in Santa Cruz de Tenerife and in which the Canary Islands have passed the baton of the presidency of the RUP to the president of La Reunión, Huguette Bello.
During her speech, the European Commissioner stressed that the EU is a “common chain” in which “all its links” must be protected, especially “the weakest”, since cohesion is the “glue” that holds the European Union together.
Elisa Ferreira highlighted that the outermost regions are a “very important” asset so that the Union can be “a global participant in the world.” Thus, he wanted to remember that a year and a half ago the RUP Strategy was reviewed to make it more focused on people and make it more practical and appropriate to the diversity of each territory, so from now on “we want to listen to find out how it works and how we can improve what has been done or tried to do.
The commissioner, in response to the “insistent” request from all the outermost regions, agreed that European policies must recognize their specificities: “It is something that we have tried to do and we have adapted European rules and policies so that they give special advantage or attention to these regions”.
Thus, Ferreira clarified that there is a “very long” list of nearly 80 legislative texts that have introduced a specificity for the ORs, as has happened in the Fit for 55 legislative package. The commissioner admitted that the Commission has not managed to go ” beyond” the proposals of the ORs, which have shown their concern regarding EU CO2 emission rights. For this reason, she appealed to wait until 2026 to make an evaluation of how this legislative package has worked.
In this regard, he recalled that the studies that supported this Commission decision showed that the impact of prices on airlines would be “very small” and would have no influence on tourism and freight transport. In any case, he was in favor of working with the ORs in the evaluation of this measure.
MIGRATION MANAGEMENT.
Regarding the migration phenomenon that regions such as the Canary Islands are suffering, Elisa Ferreira clarified that the management of migration is not the responsibility of the European Commission, but of the Member States, and recalled that there is already a proposal for an articulated management that is awaiting to be finalized and approved in order to coordinate the EU’s actions with the Member States, trusting that it will have a rapid completion.
The European commissioner also referred to the development of policies to support the biodiversity of the ORs, to which 6 million euros have been allocated, or to support sustainable coastal tourism, which has an investment of 2 million, to convert regions such as the Canary Islands in marine ecotourism destinations compared to mass tourism.
Elisa Ferreira indicated that to all this we must add the 2021-2027 European budget, which includes 16,000 million euros that will be invested by the European Union to help the development of the ORs. Therefore, she urged the presidents of the outermost regions to reflect on the available financing and focus on how to best use these funds.
In another vein, the commissioner explained that the Interreg MAC program has been extended until 2027 and has been expanded to seven neighboring countries of the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands, and the Commission has also announced a study on the living conditions of the ORs. which aims to know the situation regarding your needs for drinking water, heating, digital connection, among other aspects.
