PALMA
WAYS n which the island regions of the European Union can promote sustainable tourism will be one of the major themes of the 28th annual conference of the Islands Commission, which gets underway this Thursday in Palma.
The Islands Commission was founded in 1980. It is one of the six commissions of the Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions of Europe. The aim of the commission is to lobby the European Institutions and Member States to recognise the specific difficulties faced by the island regions and to adopt policies to help them overcome these difficulties. The commission is also a forum for co-operation on issues specifically affecting the island regions.
Participants from 12 European Union countries will be attending the two-day conference.
The UK will have one of the largest delegations with representatives from the Isle of Man, the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands and the Western Isles.
The Balearics and the Canaries are the two Spanish members of the commission. President Francesc Antich will head the Balearic delegation.
There will also be representatives from Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Sweden.
A representative from Senegal's Ile de Gorée will also be in attendance as an observer.
Sustainable tourism will be at the centre of this week's proceedings. The theme of this year's conference is How can the Islands reconcile Sustainable Development with Territorial Cohesion?
On Thursday morning, there will be a proposal for an island declaration on sustainable tourism. In the afternoon, Peter Billing, the Director of the Centre for Regional and Tourism Research in Denmark, will deliver a paper on Sustainable Tourism in Insular Europe.
On Friday morning, delegates will discuss the question: How can islands act against climatic change?.
Pedro Ballesteros Torres of the EU Energy and Transport Directorate-General will talk about the The Island's Role in the implementation of the EU Energy and Climatic change package followed by a presentation from the Azores' delegation on renewable energies.
The other substantive issue facing delegates to this year's conference will be the provisions in the Lisbon Treaty on territorial cohesion. This is the EU's stated objective to give all regions the same access to services.
The conference's draft final declaration welcomes the signing of the treaty and announces the regions' firm intention to ensure that the possibilities arising out of the provisions in the Lisbon Treaty are implemented in EU policy.
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