"Reforming Europe starting from peoples and regions. The Mediterranean Islands, with Sardinia as the leader, become the protagonists of a great political battle that must be heard and fully satisfied in the current European debate within the Conference on the Future of Europe . The Islands will prepare a joint document in the coming days which will be the basis for comparison in the Committee of the Regions ".
These are the words of Christian Solinas, who opened the work of the Conference "The challenges of the peripheral island regions in the post-Covid recovery", organized by the Brussels Office of the Sardinia Region, leader of the Partnership of the peripheral island regions of the Mediterranean, also from Balearic Islands, Corsica, Crete, Gozo, Ionian Islands.
"In this season of reform of the Community Institutions - added Solinas - we have the possibility of intervening through intangible infrastructures, consisting of ad hoc policies and specific regulatory devices that take into due account the structural and permanent disadvantages of insularity".
The governor underlined the need for a "revision of European legislation, primarily in the field of state aid, to make it more responsive to the challenges of our territories that unforeseen crisis situations, such as the current one, make even more critical".
"Not to obtain a privileged condition - he specified -, but to guarantee our citizens and our businesses the same opportunities for development and competitiveness enjoyed by other European regions".
And with the pandemic "the socio-economic disparities between European regions have worsened further, because the crisis produces deeper effects in territorial contexts in which the socio-economic assets are structurally more fragile and vulnerable".
According to Solinas, the main issues to be addressed are mainly three: “The distance and territorial discontinuity with respect to the European continent; the periphery with respect to the main production centers and outlet markets located in the continental regions; an economy heavily dependent on the outside world and therefore on connectivity with other regions of Europe ”.
(Unioneonline / L)
