Europe's islands are being left out of the debate on the European Constitution, according to a leading representative of offshore communities.
Mr Jean-Didier Hache, executive secretary of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions' Islands Commission, said that the rights of 13 million people living in offshore and remote locations must be recognised in the constitution.
Mr Hache conveyed his views to the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Mr Ó Cuív, at a recent meeting in Dublin. The Peripheral and Maritime Regions Islands Commission is a non-governmental organisation founded in Brittany, France, in 1973.
It now has an inter-regional structure extending across 153 regional authorities in remote regions from the Scottish isles to the Baltic to the Mediterranean coastline. It also represents the interests of mountain regions as part of its remit.
"Europe's policy on social and economic cohesion doesn't take into account the fact that certain territories have problems of accessibility. They have a small market, and perhaps a fragile environment which needs to be protected," Mr Hache said.
"The draft treaty on the European Constitution has a large number of references to territorial cohesion, but we hope that the actual treaty agreed at inter-governmental conference level will recognise the variety and difference of territory and the fact that not every part of Europe can be, or wants to be, linked by a motorway."
The European Small Islands Network, representing over 1,130 smaller maritime communities, believes that the European Commission should review its definition of island status.
