The Balearic Government has called for insularity in the Balearic Islands to stop being addressed through individual exceptions and instead be taken into account across the board in European Union policies. The Balearic proposal calls for an insularity clause to be incorporated into EU legislation so that the specific circumstances of islands are taken into account from the moment new rules are designed.
Director General for Institutional and Parliamentary Relations Xesca Ramis defended this position at the Commission for Territorial Cohesion Policy and EU Budget (COTER) of the European Committee of the Regions, during the debate on the future European strategy for islands.
Director General for Institutional and Parliamentary Relations Xesca Ramis. Photo: CAIB.
The Balearic Islands focused its contribution on four demands: measuring the costs of insularity, introducing an insularity clause, facilitating cooperation between islands and making certain forms of aid for freight transport more flexible.
Balearic Islands puts additional logistics costs at between 15% and 30%
One of the main proposals is to establish a common methodology to calculate the costs of insularity in an objective and comparable way across different European territories.
According to the figures presented by the Balearic representatives, the additional logistics costs for goods in the Balearic Islands are between 15% and 30% compared with equivalent mainland territories. Other disadvantages include the time required to access certain specialised healthcare services and higher energy costs resulting from insufficient interconnection.
The Balearic Government argues that these additional costs of insularity should be quantified using uniform criteria and that compensation should not depend on exceptions negotiated on a case-by-case basis.
An insularity clause in European legislation
The Balearic Islands is also proposing a common legal definition of island territory that could be applied across all European Union policies.
The proposed insularity clause would make it possible to assess in advance how new legislation would affect islands. Factors such as area, population, distance, dependence on maritime and air transport, travel time and situations of double insularity would be taken into account.
The proposal also calls for progress on the concept of island-proofing or adaptation for islands, so that the specific consequences of EU legislation for island territories are assessed before it is approved.
“The sea is not a road”: removing the 150-kilometre limit
Another of the demands concerns European territorial cooperation programmes. Participation in Interreg A is currently subject to a 150-kilometre maritime distance limit, a restriction that the Balearic Islands is calling for to be removed when islands belong to the same sea basin or sub-basin.
During the presentation, the Balearic representatives argued that “the sea is not a road” and that maritime distances cannot be assessed using the same criteria as distances on land. According to the proposal, removing this limit would strengthen cooperation between European islands.
Greater flexibility to compensate for freight transport costs
The fourth proposal focuses on making the limit on de minimis aid for transporting goods from islands more flexible.
The Balearic Government argues that compensation for higher transport costs can use up a significant proportion of the aid limit available to businesses. This subsequently reduces the scope for businesses, farmers and fishers to access other forms of support.
The Balearic Islands therefore proposes adapting these limits so that aid intended to compensate for the additional costs of insularity does not reduce the ability of productive sectors to compete with companies based in mainland territories.
The four proposals will be included and analysed in the forthcoming opinion on the EU strategy for islands. The Balearic Government’s objective is for insularity to stop being treated as an exception and instead be incorporated as a cross-cutting principle in European policies.
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