The Government of the Azores intends to integrate several cooperation projects under the axis 3 of the EU Transnational Programme Madeira - Azores - Canary Islands in order to further enhance the relations with all the partners involved in the programme, as the case of the Azores, the cooperation agreement signed with the Cape Verde Government last year, which comprises different domains such as social intervention, culture, agriculture, environment and spatial planning.
This desire was expressed by the Regional Director for Support to the Investment and to the Competitiveness on the Canary Islands today, during an Economic Meeting of the Euro-African Atlantic Axis, which was attended by members from the Governments of the Canary Islands, Madeira, Cape Verde, Equatorial Guinea and Senegal, among others.
In this context, the Regional Director considered that “the creation of a strategic axis under the Cooperation with third countries and application of the wider Neighbourhood principle will enable new types of strategies and programmes,” significantly extending the areas where such cooperation may be developed.
Moreover, the Regional Director pointed out the use of these potentialities which will also reinforce the role of the Outermost Regions as a platform for terrestrial cooperation between the European Union and its neighbour countries.
Therefore, these new cooperation mechanisms with third countries may include projects comprising various intervention areas, such as the implementation of small basic infrastructures, services and equipments to cover basic social needs; improvement of exchanges concerning transportation, services and information and communication technologies; experience exchange on regional integration or the strengthening of the economic and business sector through exchanges and internationalisation activities, among others.
For Arnaldo Machado a new stage of joint action with the Regional or National Indicative Programmes, funded by the European Development Fund in the case of cooperation projects with partners of the ACP countries or through joint actions for the Wider Neighbourhood Action Plan is expected to begin.”
According to the Regional Director for Support to the Investment and to the Competitiveness, the potentialities created by these new mechanisms bring new challenges to the ORs, such as the “definition of the main guidelines of common interest between the regions comprised by cooperation projects and the ACP countries, which favour the Ors’ economic and social cohesion, the Cohesion Policy Goal financed by the ERDF programme, the fight against poverty in the ACP countries and the development policy funded by the EDE.