Azores demand European support in agriculture, fisheries and transport

A final declaration of the XXX Conference of Presidents of the European Union’s Overseas Regions (PRU) has received “fundamental claims” from the Government of the Azores (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM) in the fields of agriculture, fisheries and transport.

According to a statement by the Azorean executive, the final statement of the meeting held in Guadeloupe “defends the maintenance of the agricultural POSEI as an autonomous programme with an enhanced budget, a position shared by the nine outermost regions”.

The document also welcomes the Azorean claim to “reestablish an autonomous POSEI-Fisheries” with increased funding and adapted to the costs that affect the fisheries sector in these regions.

The declaration also included the proposal to create a POSEI-Transport, with own resources and outside the cohesion policy funds, to meet the permanent costs associated with remoteness, insularity and territorial fragmentation.”.

“ The inclusion of these proposals in the joint position of the nine ultraperipheral regions strengthens the defense of the interests of the Azores at a decisive stage in the negotiations of the next Multiannual Financial Framework of the European Union,” said Sofia Ribeiro, Regional Secretary for Education, Culture and Sport, who represented the president of the Government of the Azores, José Manuel Bolieiro, at the conference in Sainte-Anne, Guadalupe.

For Sofia Ribeiro, quoted in the note, “a significant distance remains between the political recognition of the outermost specificities and the consecration of financial, legislative and governance instruments capable of effectively responding to them”.

The governor therefore defended “the deepening of the operational dimension of the strategy for the outermost regions through the creation of concrete measures and the corresponding funding”.

According to the Regional Government of the Azores, the political leaders of the nine regions “were concerned about the gap between the recognition of the strategic value of the outermost regions for the European Union and the financial instruments foreseen for the next Multiannual Financial Framework”.

The final statement reaffirms the contribution of the SPRs to the sovereignty, resilience and geopolitical affirmation of the European Union, in particular in the areas of the blue economy, scientific research, space, energy transition, connectivity and security, added.

In her speech, Sofia Ribeiro also warned of the need to ensure a specific increased allocation for the SPS and to ensure the participation of the Azores and Madeira “at all stages of national operationalisation” of the next Multiannual Financial Framework.

“ We cannot accept that the recognition of the specificities of the ultraperipheral regions is limited to specific measures, is lost or is secondary to a logic of centralised management and distant from the realities of our territories”, said the ruler.

The XXX Conference of the Presidents of the RUPs of the European Union was held under the chairmanship of Ary Chalus, President of the Guadeloupe Regional Council, and led by the president of the Madeira Regional Government, Miguel Albuquerque.