Brussels, 05/10/2007 (Agence Europe) - European Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner, who is highly attentive to the concerns of the outermost regions (ORs), attended the XIIIth Annual Conference of OR presidents, held in Madeira on Thursday 4 and Friday 5 October under the chairmanship of Alberto Joao Jardim, President of the Government of the autonomous region of Madeira. The conference covered the “place of the outermost regions in the enlarged Europe and in the face of new challenges”. On this occasion, Danuta Hübner - on her first visit to the region since she took over as commissioner - initiated a debate on the European strategy for ORs, with particular reference to the future of cohesion policy.
Ms Hübner hoped discussions underway on the various operational programmes (OPs) for these regions for 2007-2013 would soon come to a conclusion so that the considerable level of appropriations allocated under the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the European Social Fund (ESF) can be committed. She also discussed with President Jardim the progress made under the regional fund programmes during the previous programming period (2000-2006). In this connection she said: “We are happy with the rate of implementation of the operational programme, for which total Community funding amounts to €741 million. There is therefore no danger of appropriations being decommitted at the end of 2007”.
Ms Hübner also presented the communication adopted in mid-September by the Commission on the evolution and results of the strategy for the outermost regions (see EUROPE 9500). The commissioner hoped that these regions would be “given more help to benefit from all the opportunities arising from globalisation and to respond to the challenges it poses”. The Commission needs input from these regions to help it establish its position regarding the post-2013 financial prospects. Ideas submitted by the regions would also be used as a basis for the proposals, which the Commission would submit to the next European Parliament and to the Council after 2010, to reform policy on the outermost regions, a Commission press release notes.
The regional policy commissioner stressed the need to consider particular issues such as the fight against climate change and adjustment to the effects of climate change, demographic developments and migratory flows, the future of agricultural production and food supply (essential for the viability of these regions, the Commission notes) as well as the role of ORs in the EU's future maritime policy. (gb)