Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-15-Speech-4-013"
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"en.20070315.3.4-013"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, once again the European Parliament has brought up the subject of islands. Once again it has clearly stated in this report – and I should like to congratulate Mr Musotto on a job very well done – that island regions need special treatment. They need more aid, in order not only to overcome the development problems they face, but also so that they can make use of the potential of the common market and the globalised economy.
For all of us who inhabit island regions, problems to varying degrees, such as geographical isolation, the lack of infrastructures, economic and demographic stagnation and limited resources and options are, I would say, a way of life. At the same time, however, we are all – both permanent residents and the millions of citizens who choose European islands for their holidays – well aware of the advantages of island regions: their cultural wealth, their rich but sensitive ecosystems, their natural environment, their special way of life and their quality products and traditional methods of manufacture. We must support these advantages, we must highlight them and we must promote them through the policies of the European Union, especially through the cohesion policy, if we really want fundamental economic and territorial cohesion between the regions of Europe. It is in this context that I should like to refer to the particular importance of granting state aid to island regions, where the cost of fuel and energy has an adverse impact on their competitiveness and on the flexible application of both existing and future state aid in relation to the cost of transport, the application of an integrated policy on tourism, the application of an effective business policy and the immediate creation of an administrative unit for islands at the Regional Policy DG on the basis of experience acquired by the administrative unit for remote regions, the operation of which will safeguard all the peculiarities and needs of the islands and of their permanent and seasonal inhabitants which are taken into account in the development and application of European policies, especially in the transport, energy and water resource management sectors.
At a time when the Fourth Cohesion Report is being prepared and the debate on the future of regional policy is starting in the run-up to the review of the financial perspective for 2008-2009, the European Parliament should remember that the European Union cannot deal differently with similar situations or with different situations in the same way."@en1
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