Since the end of the 1980s, the ORs collaboration in order to defend their specificities, has allowed the progressive construction of a specific legal framework for the treatment of outermost regions.
They knew from the outset that only joint and concerted action would offer sufficient visibility in Europe to obtain, maintain and deepen a specific legal framework.
For the sake of coherence and efficiency, the ORs have been able to speak with one voice on issues of particular importance and have always taken steps to ensure that common positions and common points of view can be defined on numerous issues in an efficient and timely manner to be presented to the European bodies.
Joint Memorandums are strategic documents in which, once the lowest common denominator among the ORs has been identified and agreed-upon, concrete proposals are made inviting the European institutions to always strengthen and develop their strategy in favor of these regions.
Through each Memorandum, a balance is constantly sought between the European Commission’s strategy for the outermost regions and the ORs’ proposals to take greater account of their specificities on the legal basis of Article 349 TFEU, particularly in the budgetary and regulatory framework.
The evolution of the European and global context leads to an ongoing process of updating and adjusting the European legal framework. In this context, the European institutions, particularly the European Commission, periodically launches consultations on the future of their policies, initiatives, programs and actions on different subjects. The ORs therefore adopt common positions that they bring to the attention of the European institutions so that they can be taken into account in future legislative proposals.
Joint contributions adopted by the Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions