S.Atlantic : General Purposes Committee Brief 29/09/08
Submitted by SARTMA.com (Juanita Brock) 09.10.2008 (Article Archived on 23.10.2008)

Cllr Rendell updates us on this important committee meeting.

GENERAL PURPOSES COMMITTEE MEETING BRIEF 29/09/08

By J. Brock (FINN)

A meeting of the General Purposes committee took place on Wednesday, 24 September 2008.  Cllr Mike Rendell briefed the media on what happened during this important meeting.

There were only two subjects that Cllr Rendell could tell the media about.  One was the discussion about the Economic Strategy for the Falklands and the other was about the Green Paper and closer relations with the European Union. 

Cllr Summers mentioned that it was important for core groups to meet often as the national economic strategy is due for consideration in the 2009/10 budged deliberations.

The EU Green paper brought much discussion because it is thought the Falklands should have a closer relationship with the European Union.  However, this will bring more bureaucracy.   Also, one or two officers would have to be employed to deal with it.  At the moment our relationship is on the fringes and this is why it is difficult to get funding.  With a closer relationship there would be more money available.  We do not use the French model where overseas territories are considered to be mainland provinces.  They get more money but we simply want to have the closer relationship to help facilitate more grants from the European Union.  Cllr Rendell went on to say that the Falklands don’t want others to decide what we should or shouldn’t have and that we want to have major input into decisions about grants and not to have others make the decisions for us.

It has been said that the Falklands could be a clearing port for the European Union for South America as well as South Africa.  Mr Rendell added that there were lots of possibilities.