Astrid Pérez highlighted this Friday from Portugal the importance of the union of the Outermost Regions at a time when the European Financial Framework for the coming years is being debated. "United we stand, divided we fall," Pérez said during the closing of the Conference "The challenges of the European Union and the Multiannual Financial Framework 2028-2034." During her speech, the president encouraged the joint work of the ORs "in the face of economic policies that take regions into account."
During this event, organized by the Legislative Assembly of the Autonomous Region of the Azores, the reality of the ORs was put on the table, among other issues. "The regions have a lot at stake in the new Financial Framework, which is why we must be united, to decentralize those European policies that do not take into account the singularities of the territories," said the president, highlighting the situation of the Canary Islands. In this sense, Astrid Pérez expressed her concern about the interpretation of the future Multiannual Financial Framework with "a centralization that puts at risk funds that compensate for the outermost condition, such as the Cohesion Funds, Competitiveness Funds, or specific programs for agriculture."
This conference, held in the Portuguese town of Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, is the first official event of Astrid Pérez as president of the European Regional Parliaments. A circumstance that the Canarian leader also took advantage of to defend that the outermost regions "continue to be actors and not mere executors of the policies that are applied to us, from their design to their implementation."
During the day, representatives of different organizations participated, including the European Vice President Raffaele Fitto, with competences in Cohesion and Reforms, and the MEPs, Paulo Nascimento, André Franqueira, Ana Vasconcelos and Catarina Vieira. Experts from several European universities spoke at the Conference and debated the strategies of this new financial framework and how it may affect the regions furthest from the continent.
For the president of the European Regional Parliaments, Astrid Pérez, this meeting has shown that "29% of the citizens of the European Union still live in regions with a GDP per capita of less than 75% of the EU average, so Europe must ensure that the outermost regions are not left behind."
