He reminded that in January 2016, the European Parliament, brought a historically important Resolution on Special Situation of the Islands, set the stage for re-examining existing policies towards 21 million islanders in the European Union, from Portuguese Madeira, across the Adriatic islands, all the way to Sweden and Bulgaria, who share common problems.
"All European islands have access to European funds through relevant national institutions as well as experiences of other EU island communities. Although the EU does not have a single strategy that would solve the island problems systematically, there are regional strategies that take care about islands and islanders. Participating in the pilot project of the Secretariat for the islands of the EC, the seven Croatian islands of the Cres-Lošinj archipelago, including Susak, made an important step forward in ensuring energy self-sustainability that will be able to be funded by EU funds, which was not the case so far", said Picula and recalled on the recently launched pilot programme of the Island Secretariat.
He also emphasized that key policies such as the single market, competition policy, transport policy, rural development policy and fisheries policy should be applied with more flexibility in the case of the island. In particular, he stated that it is necessary to demand the consistent application of the articles of the UFEU on equal treatment towards all and geographically polluted areas, and that in the cohesion policy after 2020, the islands deserve special attention. The first step would be to include the island as an additional category in terms of spatial typologies.
"It is very important to have a stronger synergy between different EU instruments, national mechanisms and local community initiatives. A great example of this is today's opening of the new waterfront in Susak", Picula concluded.
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