Within the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU, the Council Working Party on Structural Actions and Outermost Regions (SMOR) met on 5 and 6 October in Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Canary Islands).

In addition, at the same time as the Canary Islands holds the rotating presidency of the Conference of Presidents of the Outermost Regions until November this year, the meeting was attended by the Regional Minister of Finance and EU Relations of the Government of the Canary Islands.

This has provided an opportunity to raise awareness of the OR reality among the Permanent Representation councillors of the 27 EU Member States, who are members of this Working Party. This Party is responsible, among others, for the negotiation between the EU Member States of regulations and decisions concerning Structural and Cohesion Funds, as well as issues that directly involve the Outermost Regions.

Besides, the WP visited various projects financed by the European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund+ in order to learn first-hand about the use of these funds in the outermost regions and their capacity to transform the lives of their citizens, creating opportunities to address the many challenges they face every day.