Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-15-Speech-4-016"
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"en.20070315.3.4-016"2
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"Mr President, I would like to add my own congratulations to the rapporteur and thank him for his very constructive approach to our amendments as we were working on this in the committee. I am very pleased to support his report today.
Coming from Scotland I have a particular interest and a particular perspective, as other Scots colleagues do, and I would remind colleagues firstly that peripherality is relative. Brussels is actually pretty peripheral if I am looking for Scottish football scores on a Saturday. Islands have a distinctive culture, a distinctive identity and a distinctive geography, which is something to celebrate, not pity. If the playing field is level, there is nothing wrong with Europe’s islands that will not be put right by what is right with Europe’s islands in their dynamism, their innovation and their potential contribution to the EU’s objectives. If Malta was in central Europe with good transport links and easy links to the rest of Europe, then it would not be Malta any more, it would be Munich. We must celebrate Europe’s islands as well as recognise their distinctiveness.
Being an island means that there are specific issues which need to be dealt with and this report makes a number of solid suggestions. I hope that our Commissioner will give us specific assurances today that this report will be acted upon because there are a lot of good ideas in it and I would hope that this would not become another wish list that the Commission pays lip service to but does not necessarily do very much with.
I would like to highlight a few specific points. Islands have specific disbenefits in interaction with the European Union single market and we must have up-to-date, accurate statistics in order to inform policy. Can our Commissioner assure us that we will work with Eurostat in order to make this happen?
In paragraphs 12 and 16 of our report, we call for the creation of a specific cross-cutting administrative unit within the Directorate-General for Regional Policy to deal with islands. This already exists in respect of outermost regions. The case for a specific unit dealing with islands is very clear. Can our Commissioner assure us that this will actually happen?
On state aid, as other colleagues have mentioned, we must see a more realistic approach from the Commission in assessing state aid criteria for islands. Islands have specific economic factors which are not currently sufficiently taken into account and I would welcome an assurance from our Commissioner that we will review policy on this.
Concerning state aid cuts, particularly in the field of transport to, from and within islands, in Scotland our own government has just squandered EUR 25 million on a very wasteful tender in respect of ferry services. This mistake was largely domestic in origin, but the complexity of the interlocking EU rules did not help and we must take a look at this again. We also need to look in particular at public service obligations and aid of a social character in terms of how they are viewed in respect of Article 87(2) of the Treaty. The position of road equivalent tariff must also be clarified.
On energy, islands have a clear natural advantage and we would like to see the Commission use all means available to encourage sustainable energy communities, in particular the European grid, and the abolition of domestic constraints. In Scotland with Shetland, Orkney, the Western Isles and Argyle and Bute we have the best wind, wave and tidal resources in the EU and a vast potential contribution to make to the EU’s energy and climate change objectives, but we are not developing these resources because we have seen insufficient investment in the grid. If the EU is serious about meeting the climate change challenges, invest in interconnectors to the Scottish islands and the Scottish islands will make a vast contribution to our objectives.
Similarly, the UK Government is holding us back in terms of a discriminatory pricing system in access to the National Grid in the UK. Simply, the further away from the main market, the higher the connection charge is to feed electricity into the UK National Grid. I am firmly of the view that this is discriminatory under Article 7(6) of the 2001 Renewable Energy Directive and I believe that the Commission must open formal proceedings against the UK for holding us back. The islands have a vast contribution to make and they can make it. There is nothing wrong with Europe’s islands that will not be put right by what is right with them, but we must ensure the playing field is level."@en1
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