Rubina Leal, President of the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, met with Younous Omarjee, Vice-President of the European Parliament and head of the Committee on Regional Development (REGI) delegation.
Leal reaffirmed the need for the European Union to ensure effective protection for Madeira as an Outermost Region (OMR), emphasizing that the island's development should not become a penalty. "Development does not eliminate distance, reduce transport costs, increase our market size, or alter our island status. Penalizing Madeira for having developed would penalize the very success of European cohesion policies," she stated.
The president warned that models making support for OMRs exclusively dependent on development indicators contradict their very purpose. "We cannot accept a Europe that acknowledges our constraints in the Treaties but relativizes them when it comes to defining policies and distributing resources," she said.
Leal argued that Article 349 of the Treaty must continue to translate into concrete differentiation in European policies and funding, highlighting that Europe must view the world from the perspective of OMRs to implement policies suitable for current times, which include challenges like energy transition, mobility, security, defense, and climate change.
