Addressing a seminar entitled ‘Gozitans’ Aspirations in Europe’ at Ta’ Ċenċ Hotel, Sannat, MEP Alfred Sant said greater efforts should be made to acccess EU funds to create new economic activity in Gozo, which would ensure new job opportunities for Gozitan youths on the island.

He said economic divergences in the EU had risen, adding that its ‘one-size-fits-all approach’ was contributing to this as it was insensitive to the needs of peripheral regions. He said Gozo should be given special treatment when EU policies were applied in the areas such as transport, tourism, agriculture, industry and artisanal projects, SMEs, financial services and digital support.

Sant said Gozo had to find niches of activities in which young Gozitans could start working on new projects in Gozo itself. He augured that the incubation unit proposed for Gozo would be a success in this regard.

It would be a good idea, he said, if the government made an extra effort to mobilise even more funds from other EU programmes that support new projects. “A case in point is the EU’s Interreg programme, which funds projects that connect units in peripheral regions and isolated islands,” he added.

Sant said the accounts heard during the seminar confirmed that “despite the great progress of the last two years, Gozo still feels isolated and needs long-term support to reduce the disparity between its situation and that of Malta, as well as of the central regions of the EU. Other island and peripheral regions of the EU feel the same way”.