The French, Spanish and Portuguese ORs have signed their 2018 political declaration
Gathered in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands as part of the 23rd Conference of Presidents, the French (Guyana, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Mayotte, Réunion, Saint-Martin), Spanish (Canary Islands) and Portuguese ORs (The Azores and Madeira) signed, Thursday, November 22, 2018, the final political declaration of the presidents of the CPRUP for this year.
During his speech at the opening of the internal session, President Gibbs reaffirmed its desire to act with one voice to make the needs of the outermost regions heard and recognize their specificities in greater Europe. Among the main issues for Saint-Martin, the classification of the territory as a NUTS 2 region is a priority. The president recalled that this classification is crucial so that Saint-Martin can directly obtain its own envelope of European funds, distinct from Guadeloupe which is currently our management authority for European funds. With this aim, President Gibbs requested the creation of a specialized Task Force on statistics, bringing together our Community, the national authorities, the European Commission, because the NUT2 classification is linked to the production of precise and reliable statistics.
“Through this proposal, we wish to find a rapid and lasting solution to compensate for the deficiencies of the national statistical system in the territory and allow the production of the data necessary for the recognition of Saint-Martin as a region of Europe in its own right and not entirely apart...", insisted President Gibbs.
The commitments of the 23rd declaration of the presidents of the ORs will be placed under the presidency of Daniel Gibbs, the community of Saint-Martin regaining the presidency of the CPRUP as of November 23, 2018 (date of the transfer of power between the Canaries and Saint-Martin).
The 23rd declaration of the presidents reaffirms the commitment of the 9 OR in favor of a stronger, more respectful Europe while respecting the diversity that composes it and the rules of law established by Article 349 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
Highlight in the final declaration of the presidents: the ORs are committed to supporting Saint-Martin in obtaining its NUTS 2 classification. A unanimous mark of solidarity that the president of Saint-Martin was keen to publicly salute during the conference press conference held by the 9 territories following the signing. The unity of the ORs must be underlined in a tense European context weakened by the weakening of multilateralism, the rise of populism and Brexit.
The presidents also expressed their concern about the content of the negotiations within the European Parliament and the European Council on the legislative and financial proposals for the next programming period.
In this regard, the ORs are attentive to Europe's proposals in areas with strong issues for our regions such as the Cohesion Policy, European territorial cooperation, the Sea and Fisheries Fund, the reform of the common agricultural policy or the Horizon Europa program (R + D + i) and the LIFE environmental program .
The ORs intend to defend an ambitious budget which gives priority to policies with a strong territorial impact and to maintaining financial resources at the current level of cohesion policy and agriculture. They also express their rejection of any reduction in financial resources intended for the outermost regions. In the same spirit, the reduction in co-financing rates is inconceivable for the ORs which are blatantly behind schedule on basic infrastructure, and propose to remedy this by maintaining the European aid rate of 85%.
The community of Saint-Martin will therefore have to carry all of these commitments within the framework of the presidency of the CPRUP from which it will take over within a few hours.
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