WRITTEN QUESTION No. 3723/98 by Roy PERRY to the Commission. Community obligations to islands under the Treaty of Amsterdam
21. 7. 1999 EN Official Journal of the European Communities C 207/115 (1999/C 207/155) WRITTEN QUESTION P-3723/98 by Roy Perry (PPE) to the Commission (25 November 1998) Subject: Community obligations to islands under the Treaty of Amsterdam Now that the Treaty of Amsterdam has been signed and is generally expected to be ratified, what does the European Commission intend to do to honour its obligations to islands under the new Article 158? Can the Commission indicate any proposals it is considering making in order to meet its legal obligations under this Article, once ratification has been completed? Answer given by Mrs Wulf-Mathies on behalf of the Commission (6 January 1999) On 18 March 1998, the Commission approved a proposal for a General Regulation on the Structural Funds (1) which translates into operational terms the guidelines set out in ‘Agenda 2000: for a stronger and wider Union’ (2). In order to increase the impact of Community structural policies in regions facing the most difficulty, the Commission is proposing that geographical concentration of assistance be tightened: the proportion of the Community population in areas eligible under the new Objectives 1 and 2 should be around 35-40 % compared with 51 % at present under Objectives 1, 2, 5(b) and 6. This effort of concentration is to involve all regions, including islands. The wording of the future Article 158, such as it arises from the Treaty of Amsterdam in the process of ratification, states that ‘the Community shall aim at reducing disparities between the levels of development of the various regions and the backwardness of the least favoured regions or islands, including rural areas. ’ This Article does not therefore cover all islands but only those which have least-favoured status. The Commission believes that the eligibility criteria proposed for the new Objectives 1 and 2 will make it possible to assess the extent of the problems with which islands are confronted, bearing in mind that the individual circumstances of different islands can be very diverse. (1) OJ C 176, 9. 6. 1998. (2) COM(97) 2000 final. (1999/C 207/156) WRITTEN QUESTION P-3725/98 by Carlos Carnero González (GUE/NGL) to the Commission (25 November 1998) Subject: Continued eligibility of the Autonomous Community of Cantabria (Spain) under Objective 1 of the Structural Funds Over the past few days various sections of the Spanish media have given coverage to the statistics released by Eurostat on the average income of EU regions over the three-year period 1994-1996, which apparently reveal that the figure for the Autonomous Community of Cantabria is slightly higher than 75 % of the Community average. According to several daily newspapers, these results have led the Spanish Government and the regional authorities in Cantabria to assert that the region will no longer be covered by Objective 1 of the Structural Funds in the new programming period. Does the Commission believe that, in the light of these statistics, there are grounds for such an interpretation? If so, does it not regard it as premature at this stage in the legislative debate for the central and regional governments to draw the above conclusions, given the European Parliament’s request in a recent resolution for more flexible criteria to be employed when it comes to drawing up the list of regions covered by Objective 1 of the Structural Funds? Does it take the view that purchasing power parity, the criterion employed by Eurostat, gives the most satisfactory indication of a region’s real degree of wealth, or does it see the need rather to establish more objective yardsticks, such as the average GDP of a region’s working population?