WRITTEN QUESTION E-3132/97 by Jean Baggioni (UPE) to the Commission (13 October 1997)

Subject: Funding of island networks

The EURISLES network, funded from RECITE I, has become ineligible for RECITE II funding owing to the large number of regions involved and has been rejected in the TERRA call for tenders.

Can the Commission explain this absence of funds for an island network which was eligible for Community funding under RECITE I in the period 1992-1994?

The Commission has also refused to finance a statistical survey on indicators to measure the cost of island status and remoteness (as a result, the survey was conducted exclusively with regional funding).

Such refusals are even more difficult to understand when one considers that the activities and cooperation schemes set up by this network have been considered commendable by the Commission itself and that the network's dynamism is illustrated by the significant increase in the number of bodies from island regions which have joined.

Given that the Amsterdam Summit recognized the specific needs of island regions in the revised Treaty on European Union, it would seem paradoxical to continue to refuse such funding since this is totally out of step with the policy, within the objective of economic and social cohesion, of taking due account of the handicaps affecting islands.

Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (21 November 1997)

The Eurisles network has not submitted a pilot scheme to the Commission for financing under Recite II. The network did communicate a draft project involving too many regions which was, essentially, a continuation of the 1992-94 pilot scheme. Therefore, in 1997, it could no longer be considered a pilot scheme. In addition, the criteria for the Recite II programme were decided on the basis of experience gained with Recite I, which showed that collaboration by too many partners is very complicated. Thus, the number of partners allowed under Recite II has been limited to seven.

Island regions have proposed projects under Recite II independently of the Eurisles network. Among the 56 projects preselected for their quality, 14 have islands as partners, in particular Corsica, Crete, Sardinia, the Canaries, the Balearic Islands, the northern Aegean Islands and the Ionian Islands. One specific pilot scheme for an island network was also preselected, namely the 'five green islands' of Kefalonia, Ithaka, Mallorca, Madeira and Mykonos.

In addition, among the other measures financed under Article 10 of the European Regional Development Fund Regulation ((OJ L 193, 31.7.1993. )), islands are participating in at least 12 of the 130 pilot projects under the Innovation programme. The following are involved as project leaders or partners:

- for the 'new employment areas ' pilot projects: Guadeloupe, Corsica, the Canaries;

- for the 'interregional cooperation on culture' pilot projects: Corsica, the Ionian Islands, Sardinia, Sicily, the Balearic Islands;

- for the 'technology transfer' pilot projects: Crete, the Canaries, Madeira;

- for the 'information society' pilot projects: Crete, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia, Guadeloupe, Madeira.

With regard to the Terra programme, despite the obvious quality of the Eurisles proposal, the large number of good proposals submitted with the same zonal characteristics and the Community interest of promoting the creation of new partnerships between local authorities led the Commission not to select the proposal, so as to ensure a more balanced thematic distribution in the programme.

It is true that the Commission was not able to provide financial assistance for the statistical study on indicators relating to islands and the outermost regions. Because such a project relates only to specific geographical regions, it would not be in accordance with the established policy of developing a common framework of socio-economic indicators applicable to all regions. However, although it was not possible to provide direct financial support, the organisation was given practical advice on how to develop its proposals.

Financial assistance has been granted to socio-professionals in the remotest regions (including the French overseas departments) to determine and quantify the additional costs to productive sectors caused by remoteness and to define common interregional cooperation measures to overcome these handicaps (to facilitate access by these regions to the internal market by means of coordinated product promotion measures).

However, it should be specified that the financing of this project is not an additional financial allocation by the Commission, since the appropriations have been allocated under the single programming documents (SPDs) for the French overseas departments adopted in 1994.

This review of the studies and pilot projects relating to the islands of the Community shows that, even if it has not been possible to adopt all the proposals transmitted by the islands, some of them have been financed. Proposals are obviously not being systematically rejected, but the Commission follows rules on the grant of financing, which must benefit the best projects.