"I am extremely pleased that the European Parliament has recognized the Intergroup's results over the past term, as well as our vision for the future. It will be an honour for me to chair SEARICA and work to promote Europe's blue strategy, healthy oceans, seas, rivers and lakes, as well as further addressing to the isolation of islands. Four years ago when we founded it, the Intergroup brought together 81 MEPs from 20 EU Member States. Today, it brings together 114 MEPs from 24 countries, which is just an additional incentive for us to do even more for our islanders", said Tonino Picula, Croatian MEP, who will take over as Chair of SEARICA in January 2020th.
Following the co-founding of the Islanders Intergroup in Parliament in 2015, Picula also initiated the creation of the Island Secretariat at the European Commission in 2018, the first working body in the history of the EU dedicated exclusively to islands. First, the amendments provided the Secretariat with two million euros to support the island's energy transition, and recently adopted its Action Plan with an additional two million euros for professional and technical assistance in transition, which entered the new EU 2020 budget. this, the European Commission included in the European Green Plan the energy transition of the islands, confirming their importance in meeting the EU2050, environmentally neutral EU objectives.
Ten Croatian islands: Cres, Ilovik, Lošinj, Male and Velike Srakane, Susak, Unije, Brač, Hvar and Korčula are in the process of transition to clean energy. Cres-Lošinj archipelago has announced that it plans to switch exclusively to renewable energy by 2040, and the news is that for the first time this year, the Clean Energy Forum for the EU Islands was held in Croatia, bringing together more than 190 European islanders.
"In this mandate, we will further encourage the islands through the Intergroup to be at the forefront of solving island problems. We will also advocate for effective international ocean governance, but also for the oceans to be continually present and represented in the climate debate. We will also focus on finding a solution for microplastics that pollutes our shores and seas that contain as much as 150 million tons of plastic", Picula announced.
SEARICA has so far organized more than 50 meetings, panel discussions and conferences with more than 13 000 participants and around 500 speakers, which included representatives of the Commission, Parliament, the Council and representatives of islanders from more than twenty EU countries.
SEARICA also co-organized the Ocean Plastics Lab exhibition with pieces of waste extracted from the sea, which was visited by more than eight thousand citizens in front of the European Parliament. The concern for the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Croatian islands is a constant focus of Picula's work in the European Parliament. Because of his dedicated work, the European Federation of the Small Islands nominated him as the MEP of the year as a MEP who did most for the European islands.
