Submission to the EU Islands Strategy
The full submission can be viewed here through PDF hosted on Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qk_0te6tzWZa5b5bk0KjOyQQ--UT4RKp/view?usp=sharing
Below you can find the executive summary.
Executive Summary
Europe’s islands are home to millions of citizens, extraordinary biodiversity, living languages and cultures, and are front-line territories for climate change. They are also, too often, communities left behind, not through any failure of their own, but as a direct consequence of fragmented, mainland-designed policy that fails to account for the compounding structural realities of insularity.
Oileán submits that the EU Islands Strategy represents an opportunity to change this. This submission calls on the European Commission to adopt a bold, rights-based and place-based strategy that treats insularity not as an exceptional condition to be managed, but as a permanent, structural reality that must be mainstreamed across every domain of EU policy.
The strategy must also look beyond the formal boundaries of EU island policy. The Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) associated with EU Member States occupy a unique constitutional position: they are not subject to EU law in the conventional sense, yet their communities share many of the same structural disadvantages as EU islands. Their relationship with the Union deserves explicit, coherent recognition within the broader strategic framework.
Key Recommendations
Enshrine a mandatory insularity clause – ‘island-proofing’ – requiring all relevant EU legislative and policy proposals to be assessed for their differential impact on island communities before adoption, giving operational effect to Article 174 TFEU.
Establish ring-fenced, dedicated EU funding for islands in the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF), with simplified access rules, lower co-financing thresholds, and technical assistance tailored to small island administrations.
Legislate a binding minimum services guarantee for all inhabited EU islands, covering transport, broadband, healthcare, education, energy, water, and waste – as a floor, not a ceiling.
Recognise the right to remain on one’s island as a concrete, enforceable policy objective, supported by integrated investment in housing, employment, services, and connectivity.
Establish a permanent EU Islands Secretariat or dedicated Agency, with a cross-cutting mandate across DG REGIO, DG MARE, DG AGRI, and DG ENER, to coordinate island-proofing and provide sustained technical support.
Develop an EU Island Data Framework, coordinated through Eurostat, to establish comparable, island-specific indicators that go beyond GDP and capture the real costs and conditions of insularity.
Position islands as demonstration territories for Europe’s green and digital transitions, with tailored transition pathways that do not impose disproportionate costs on island communities.
Ensure that decarbonisation policy is applied with island-specific derogations, transitional arrangements, and proportionality mechanisms to prevent connectivity being sacrificed on the altar of compliance.
Formally recognise the role of island cultural and linguistic heritage as a development asset and a fundamental dimension of EU cohesion, and resource its protection and transmission through Creative Europe and structural instruments.
Explicitly recognise the position of Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) associated with EU Member States, and develop a coherent framework for strategic dialogue, solidarity, and shared learning between EU islands and OCTs.
Establish co-management rights for island communities in marine spatial planning processes, ensuring that island fishers and coastal communities are primary stakeholders, not merely consultees.
Develop a differentiated typology of EU islands (by size, population, remoteness, and degree of insularity) to enable policy instruments to be calibrated to the real diversity of island realities.
Development and coordination of an Island Youth Network
Engagement of all European Island Stakeholders once a year through an island conference hosted in Brussels.
