Brussels, 08/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - At a press conference held on Tuesday 7 July, the seven MEPs of the EFA group (European Free Alliance), who belong to a joint grouping together with the Greens at the European Parliament, reiterated their hopes of seeing the role of the regions within the Union increase.
Frieda Brepoels, a member of the European Parliament and of the Flemish party N-VA, said that "the autonomy of Flanders is extremely important" and that she would act to ensure a greater involvement of the regions. Alyn Smith, of the Scottish National Party, laid greater emphasis on the notion of the "independence of the regions" and said that he felt it was his duty to contribute towards "making Scotland the 28th member of the EU".
Apart from this desire for greater autonomy, even independence, of the regions, the EFA MEPs stressed the need to defend the minorities of each country. The outgoing Tatjana Zdanoka, of the "Human Rights Committee of Latvia" who belongs to the Russian-speaking minority of that country, said that "her greatest task (over the course of her new European mandate) would be to do all in her power to reinforce the rights of minorities". All of the EFA MEPs agreed that the European Union has a vital role to play in giving these people a voice. The main objectives of the new MEPs will therefore be to promote cultural diversity and multilingualism in Europe. On the issue of languages in particular, they announced that they were waiting for a meeting with the future president of the EP to reiterate the idea of officially using regional languages at conferences.
The EFA members also spoke of the following objectives: - reforming the Common agriculture policy; - promoting a sustainable fisheries policy; - fighting the effects of climate change; - promoting education. (L.P/transl.fl)