Mr President, for the European Union this is simply one more debate of the many that we hold. For the outermost regions this is the most important debate that the European Parliament can hold concerning them. In fact, what we say here today and how we vote tomorrow will be front-page news in the seven outermost regions, and the news reports on the regional television channels will report extensively on what we say and decide here. For many Europeans, some outermost regions are nothing more than a holiday destination on the map. This may even be the view of some of our fellow MEPs of the outermost regions. For those of us who are speaking here tonight on behalf of our native regions, this is a very negative view, and, of course, a deeply mistaken one. Behind this idea, beyond our landscape and an exceptional climate, is the social and economic reality of regions that are among the least developed in the European Union, with the highest levels of unemployment and with huge structural problems that impede our development. For more than a decade the European Commission has been aware of our problems and our particular characteristics. This is the first debate that the plenary session of the European Parliament has held about our regions since the Treaty of Amsterdam included a new article on them. So far, since an interdepartmental group was set up for the outermost regions under the presidency of Mr Delors, we have travelled a long and fruitful road, and I must express the deepest gratitude of the Europeans from the outermost regions to those who have presided over that group. The Commission document for implementing paragraph 2 of Article 299 of the EC Treaty is a good document, and our rapporteur, Mrs Sudre, has done well today by offering us an excellent report. With this Article and with the measures taken in order to implement it, we have a legal basis that until now we were lacking, and a good tool for our development. Mrs Sudre has succeeded in putting together a balanced report that includes many of the amendments – more than 100 of them – which were tabled for the initial draft report. One of these amendments proposes the implementation and application of the policies of the financial instrument for fisheries. What I wish to highlight here today, Commissioner Barnier, is that, for the outermost regions, while Community law fully applies, it is essential that those rules be modulated and adapted in order to stimulate rather than impede their economic and social cohesion with the rest of the European citizens. The internal market and the rules that govern it do not benefit the outermost regions to the same extent that they benefit Europeans on the continent. The natural limitations of our island markets, thousands of kilometres away, mean that our businesses have difficulty being competitive: problems with transport, communications, supplies, running costs. This is why we have so many problems generating wealth and creating employment. Our unemployment levels are among the highest in the European Union. It is therefore necessary to implement a series of measures which Margie Sudre’s report covers in detail. In our view these measures need to go beyond regional development policies, because our shortfalls and handicaps are structural, not temporary. We will always be far away and we will always have difficulties because of the fact that we are islands and because of our landscape, which is beautiful but also harsh and difficult to overcome. We are not asking for subsidies. We want to have tools that will enable us to develop. The outermost regions bring Atlantic, American and African dimensions to Europe, which enrich our cultural, political and economic diversity, of which we are all rightly proud.

Political group: PPE-DE