The European Parliament overwhelmingly supported (664 votes to 8 with 21 abstentions) the own-initiative report by Younous Omarjee (The Left, France) calling for the creation of a new Atlantic macro-region in response to the Atlantic Action Plan 2.0 (see EUROPE 12535/5).
“The European Parliament united in calling for an Atlantic macro-region. Let’s move on!”, Mr Omarjee, who is also Chairman of the Committee on Regional Development, posted on his Twitter account. In concrete terms, MEPs are asking the Council of the EU to give the European Commission a mandate to establish such a macro-region.
The macro-region would bring together the coastal façades of Spain, France, Ireland and Portugal, as well as the outermost regions, in order to strengthen their land-sea cooperation and to rationalise governance and the various sources of funding, with the aim of increasing the participation of regional authorities and the outermost regions in particular.
MEPs note that the previous action plan, the one from 2013, did not achieve the expected results, due to an overly complex governance and structure and the lack of a budget allocation (see EUROPE 12762/14).
To consult the report: https://bit.ly/3hDDATR (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)