News / Euro committee visit
THE EUROPEAN committee of the regions is to meet in Shetland for the first time next year to discuss barriers to economic development in remote island communities.
Shetland Islands Council leader Gary Robinson said it would be an important opportunity to get the European Commission to understand the specific economic challenges the islands face.
A seminar with the working title ‘barriers to economic development and wealth creation in remote island communities’ will take place in September 2016.
Robinson said it was “hugely timely” with a new set of guidelines governing European regional aid being finalised in the first half of 2017.
“We had to lobby commissioner Hahn, at that time, to get our particular situation recognised last time around,” he said. “We had limited success on that occasion.
“The problem we had last time was the regional aid guidelines were mainly taking into account GDP and unemployment.”
Places like Shetland and Orkney have high GDP and low unemployment, but Robinson said that skewed the economic picture.
“The point made by many island areas is you tend not to have high unemployment – folk either get a job or they leave, and in our case the whole thing is being skewed heavily by the fact that we have the oil industry in the islands.
“We’re looking to get a set of indicators that better reflect our situation, and I think something the European Commission has been looking at is around distances.”
Robinson said it was important the cost of distances was measured – again giving the example of how you can fly over 1,000 miles between the Azores and Lisbon for a £50 return with Ryanair, whereas the 200-mile flight between Shetland and Aberdeen can cost four times that amount.
Likewise, you can take an 800-mile ferry trip to the Canary Islands for the same cost as sailing from Lerwick to Aberdeen, he pointed out.
While those are popular destinations for sun-seeking tourists, “we don’t really know what the potential for tourism in Shetland might be” due to the prohibitive cost, Robinson continued.
“There are huge disincentives in terms of the cost of travel to and from Shetland. Until we do something like the Western Isles and drastically reduce the cost of travevl, we’re not going to find out – it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation.”
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