EU moves to expand ‘outermost region’ privileges as Spain presses Ceuta and Melilla claim
The EU Commission says its 'omnibus' bill published on Thursday (10 September), will build on the special legal status that the so-called 'outermost regions' of the 27-member bloc have.
The European Commission has offered a series of carve outs on tax, agriculture and migration policy to the bloc’s ‘outermost’ territories in the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, a week after Spain indicated that it wants its two North African enclaves to be given the same legal status.
The designation of ‘outermost region’ covers nine islands: French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, La Réunion and Saint-Martin, belonging to France, the Portuguese islands of the Azores and Madeira, and the Spanish Canary Islands to Spain.
Speaking on Thursday (10 September), European Commission executive vice-president Raffaele Fitto said that the blueprint was about promoting “geostrategic potential and regional integration.”
“We want these regions to play their full role as European gateways, strengthening cooperation with neighbouring countries and regions and contributing to our trade, security, defence and external policies,” he said in a statement.
The proposal would change the immigration and asylum rules for the French regions in the Caribbean and Indian Ocean who are not part of the Schengen area but are seeing a spike in irregular migration.
Benjamin Fox is our trade and geopolitics editor. His reporting has also been published in the Guardian, the East African, Euractiv, Private Eye and Africa Confidential, among others. He is based in Nairobi, Kenya, although he often reports from London.
