Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-09-02-Speech-2-024"
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"en.20030902.1.2-024"2
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"Mr President
the report we are in a quandary about approving contains a genuinely fundamental change to regional policy. Regions with permanent handicaps must be regarded in a new way in aid policy. I believe this fundamental revaluation to be important. There are handicaps that are ongoing. We in sparsely populated Finland are familiar with such disadvantages, and these were also noted in the important accession treaty for Finland, Sweden and Austria. Mountain regions and archipelagos may also be of relevance in this connection, however. At any event, I should like to see islands and archipelagos given special treatment.
When Finland became a member of the EU, it was difficult for us to maintain important aid arrangements. For example, certain general forms of transport aid were examined extremely critically by the Commission. It is not large amounts of aid we are requesting for sparsely populated areas, the archipelago and mountain areas, but such sums may be crucial to it being possible to maintain services. An important part of the policy may also consist of countries being given opportunities to receive certain smaller sums by way of general aid and of companies that maintain services of general interest being required to ensure that such services operate.
We also need rules within agricultural policy enabling small-scale agriculture in the archipelago to survive. That is incredibly important for the archipelago as a part of our world heritage and as something that we are trying to administer as well as possible. The European Convention proposes similar changes, something for which we are extremely grateful.
Finally, I wish to say that the concept of territorial cohesion was really originated by the CPMR under its then chairman, Stig Östdahl. I am extremely pleased that, today as well, Parliament can contribute to new and important thinking that must be of use in enabling people to live and prosper in all parts of the EU."@en1
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