The backing from the business associations of the three states is considered crucial for the upcoming negotiations of the European budget for the 2028-2034 period. In a letter addressed to the president of the CEOE of Tenerife, Pedro Alfonso, Clavijo highlighted that the joint positioning is a relevant contribution to defending the archipelago's specific funds in Brussels.
This initiative responds to a prior letter from the business organizations of the three states to European authorities, demanding specific and differentiated treatment for RUPs in the new financial framework. This letter coincided with the one sent by presidents Pedro Sánchez (Spain), Emmanuel Macron (France), and Luís Montenegro (Portugal) to the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, and the President of Ireland, Micheál Martin.
The business organizations emphasize the need to ensure sufficient, stable, and clearly identifiable funding for ultra-peripheral regions, preventing resources from being diluted into general instruments. The importance of preserving and strengthening key instruments like POSEI and the Specific Supply Regime is highlighted, as well as maintaining a state aid framework adapted to the particularities of these regions.
The letter expressly acknowledges the strategic role of POSEI for the agriculture and food security of RUPs, advocating for its continuation as an autonomous instrument with adequate and reinforced funding, taking into account inflation, increased production costs, and adaptation to climate change. This approach is vital for the Canary primary sector, which operates under permanent structural constraints.
In this regard, the Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries, and Food Sovereignty, Narvay Quintero, has traveled to Brussels to reinforce the defense of the continuity and financial update of the Canary Islands' Community Support Programme for Agricultural Productions (POSEI). The Canary Government representative has advocated for the safeguarding of POSEI as a specific and autonomous instrument with its own financial allocation.
The offensive intensifies ahead of the new financial framework proposal presented by the Irish Presidency, which outlines a global budget lower than initially proposed by the European Commission. The document to be debated maintains the integration of agricultural and fisheries policies into future national and regional plans, with specific budgetary allocations for the CAP and the Common Fisheries Policy.
