Artur Lima defends strong Cohesion Policy to alleviate constraints in the Azores – Communication

Vice-Presidency of the Regional Government

The Vice-President of the Regional Government of the Azores, Artur Lima, accompanied by the Regional Director of European Affairs and External Cooperation, Carlos Amaral, defended today, in Patras, that “the European Union cannot be conceived without a strong and ambitious Cohesion Policy ”, which is oriented towards the “full integration of the Outermost Regions within the European framework”.

“We cannot conceive of the European Union (EU) without a strong and ambitious Cohesion Policy, hopefully with a simpler and more flexible application, and with an increasingly in-depth territorial approach”, he clarified.

Artur Lima was speaking at a session dedicated to the Future of Cohesion Policy post-2027, which took place within the scope of the Political Bureau of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions (CPRM), taking place in Patras, Greece.

“Cohesion is at the heart of the European project thanks to its territorial approach, which reflects European diversity”, he said.

And he recalled: “it is necessary to emphasize that the situation of the Outermost Regions, such as the Azores, is not comparable – due to the combination of various constraints – to other territorial realities in Europe”.

For the government official, it is vital to ensure that “any new responses within the framework of post-2027 European reforms should not be made to the detriment of long-term investment programs, such as the Cohesion Policy”.

Therefore, Artur Lima considered that the “needs of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, in terms of basic infrastructure in essential areas such as transport, health, education or digital technology” should continue to be “a priority within the scope of the Cohesion”.

In this regard, the Vice-President of the Government gave an example of the case of transport and accessibility in archipelagic regions.

“The connectivity and sustainability of transport are the paradigmatic example of the difficulty of adapting policies designed for a contiguous and homogeneous territory, to islands, archipelagos and territories very far from the European continent”, he considered.

And he stated: “in the case of the Azores, for example, this is a blatant situation, where there are nine airports or aerodromes and more than a dozen ports (not counting fishing ports), in addition to nine road networks with very specific configurations in the nine islands. Therefore, it will be necessary to mobilize, on an ongoing basis, resources to enable the continuity of these infrastructures and their maintenance, also given the exposure to meteorological phenomena to which they are subject”.