Sustainable development of the OCT's : the economy at the core of privileged partnership with the European Union
The economy is a leading motor for sustainable development and is at the core of the concerns of Overseas Countries and Territories. Economic development allows for social progress and in order to be viable in the long term and to improve quality of life the economy has to respect the environment. The brochure is a complement to the work done this year on environmental issues. After drawing the attention of the stakeholders to climate change last year, OCTA wants to highlight the economic stakes of EU decisions in this brochure. Annual political resolutions illustrate that access to the EU market, regional integration, financial support and optimisation of development aid are thematic core issues of the OCTs’ governments. As a result of its adapted trade policy and its ambitions for OCT regional integration and development aid, the European Union is a privileged partner with which the OCTs are ready to go further.
The contributions of this brochure are representative of OCT territories constitutionally linked with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark and France located in the Caribbean, in the Pacific, in the Indian Ocean, and the North and South Atlantic. Unsurprisingly, they illustrate different development strategies depending on the level of development, of natural resources, geographical and demographic characteristics, history and culture. More surprisingly, common traits are represented in the OCTs: necessary public intervention to manage mining and fishing resources and, increasingly, to preserve sustainable economic activities. There is a need for an infrastructure that can unlock islands’ potential and a need for adaptations of regulatory and institutional frameworks to develop goods, services and exports, and stimulate regional integration.
In the strategic aspects of development policies, a privileged partnership with the European Union –(which the European Commission and OCTs called for at the Forum in 2006 in Nuuk) needs to take place. Let us give the territories the opportunity to represent the concrete economic realities they face. These realities are both the rationale and the illustration for many of OCTA ‘s political resolutions.
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