In a letter sent to Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development Christophe Hansen, seen by Agence Europe on Wednesday 27 May, the agriculture ministers of France, Spain and Portugal called for the specific features of the outermost regions to be better taken into account in the next Multiannual Financial Framework.
“Given their geographical and climatic characteristics, [their] economic development and the challenges linked to food sovereignty, these territories cannot be treated in the same way as the Union’s other less developed regions. It is necessary to maintain specific consideration for the outermost regions in the future Multiannual Financial Framework by supporting their agricultural sector and to implement EU policies effectively in these territories”, argue the three countries, the only ones in the EU to have regions with outermost region status.
To this end, they notably call on the European Commission to renew ‘POSEI’ (Programme of Options Specifically Relating to Remoteness and Insularity). More specifically, they want to adopt a regulation specific to this programme, giving concrete form to the provisions on ‘interventions in the outermost regions’ mentioned in the future regulations relating to the national and regional partnership plans and the CAP. The three countries also want to include in it the measures set out in Articles 47 and 48 of the current ‘POSEI’. (Original version in French by Juliette Verdes)