"The European Union must provide Outermost Regions with the necessary mechanisms to enable their citizens to benefit from common policies on the same terms as citizens living in the rest of the Union. Outermost regions need support from the European institutions to face migration crises, to reduce accessibility gap, to ensure an appropriate and affordable energy transition as well as to ensure food sovereignty." Pedro Chaves de Faria e Castro, the CoR Rapporteur on ' Putting people first, securing sustainable and inclusive growth, unlocking the potential of the EU's outermost regions' made these remarks when discussing his opinion during a CoR COTER Commission meeting.
De Faria e Castro who serves as Regional Undersecretary of the Presidency' of the Azores Government said that the permanent structural constraints faced by the outermost regions, do not resemble other European regions with specific geographical characteristics, such as islands, mountain areas or regions with low population density and hence require specific support. He added that the situation resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the urgent need to address current and future economic, social, cultural and environmental challenges, has highlighted the need for the 2017 strategy to be thoroughly revamped. While welcoming the communication he stressed the need for coordinated action by supranational, national, regional and local authorities and for swift implementation of the proposed measures. De Faria e Castro stressed that this is key as Outermost Regions give the European Union a unique geostrategic dimension to enable it to respond to the various and difficult challenges in the international system.
With respect to migration, the rapporteur called for strong, resolute support from the European institutions to face migration crises, especially in the EU’s external border regions, which bear sole responsibility for receiving unaccompanied minors arriving there and providing them with access to basic services, as well as for supporting their passage into adulthood.
In terms of the green transition, the rapporteur pointed out that the outermost regions are isolated energy systems which cannot be connected to the mainland, and called on the European institutions to promote their energy autonomy through support and promotion policies that allow an appropriate, affordable transition to be made to sustainable systems.
In order to reduce accessibility gap, De Faria e Castro called for support for projects to make the outermost regions more connected. In this regard he said that particular attention should be paid to the state aid rules that strengthen and encourage the connections of the outermost regions. He stressed that the outermost regions' tourism is dependent on air and sea connections and hence any measure restricting mobility must be adapted when it is applied. He also stressed the need to support the renewal of the outermost regions' small-scale fishing fleet in order to ensure economic growth and food sovereignty in these regions.
Further information
The European Union (EU) has nine ‘outermost regions’: Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion and Saint Martin (France), the Canary Islands (Spain) and the Azores and Madeira (Portugal). The outermost regions are an integral part of the EU and must apply its laws and obligations.
The outermost regions are distinguished by their remoteness from mainland Europe, insularity, small size (except French Guiana), difficult topography and climate and economic dependence on a few products.
The opinion is planned to be adopted in the COTER commission in November 2022 and later presented for a vote in the CoR plenary session of February 2023.