Ildefonso Socorro, Deputy Minister of Economy and Economic Affairs with the EU of the Canary Islands Government, explained this morning the situation of the Islands as an Outermost Region to fifty students and professors from six EU countries (Italy, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, France, Belgium and Canarias) participating in an exchange of the Erasmus L’Europe project: notre projet común, which takes place these days in Gran Canaria.

The representative of the Ministry of Economy, Industry, Trade and Knowledge of the Government of the Canary Islands reminded young people that the concept of the outermost region was coined by the European Union to identify “a unique and unique territorial reality”. Socorro informed them that there are currently nine outermost regions in Europe (Canary Islands, Azores, Madeira, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, French Guiana, Martinique, Reunion and Mayotte) with a total population of four million inhabitants living in three seas and oceans different

The determining factors that characterize the ORs are: the insularity, having a relief and adverse climates, small area, great distance from the European continent and its proximity to third countries.

Also, Ildefonso Socorro reviewed the actions that the Government of the Canary Islands is developing this year in which it corresponds to Las Islas and in particular to Fernando Clavijo, the presidency of the Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions.

The project in which these young people work encourages the approach to the European institutions and the critical spirit to debate the objectives at the origin of the EU and the priorities of the future. Also new technologies in learning and social values ​​such as respect and integration in Europe.

The students are between 14 and 17 years old and they study in public institutes of their localities. The project is an Erasmus + KA2 school association. The Gran Canaria center that hosts this mobility is the IES Joaquín Artiles de Agüimes.

The students from Las Islas who participate in the project welcome their classmates from other countries into their homes and will later be welcomed by them in another planned exchange. This course of the European Erasmus program covers two school years.