VALENCIA STATES ITS CASE ON BREXIT
Regional president Ximo Puig travels to Brussels for talks about trade and the rights of Britons living in the region
PRESIDENT of Valencia region Ximo Puig met with the European Union’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Wednesday to discuss the effects of UK’s withdrawal from the EU.
The talks, which will be continued in Alicante in the autumn, centred on shoring up trade with the UK and ensuring that British residents in the Valencia region will continue to enjoy the rights they currently hold.
Sr Puig said he asked for the effects of Brexit to be minimised as he does not want a return to a new wave of protectionism.
He highlighted that the UK is the third largest market for exports from the Valencia re- gion, representing 9% of the total. For this reason the imposition of import duty should be ruled out in the trade deal which is currently being negotiated between the EU and the UK, he said.
Sr Puig told Mr Barnier this would help the region to maintain the current levels of trade which it enjoys with Britain.
This includes exports from key sectors such as the food industry, ceramics and the shoe industry.
He also reminded that a third of all tourists to Valencia region come from the UK.
British residents
After the meeting Sr Puig highlighted the advances made between the EU and the UK to ‘guarantee the rights of Valencian people living in Britain and British residents who live in Valencia’.
He noted that this was the ‘fundamental issue’ because ‘people’s rights have to come first’ – and reminded that a third of all the Britons living in Spain reside in the Valencia region.
Sr Puig noted that Sr Barnier had taken on board their concerns and sug- gestions over residents’ rights – and ‘the importance of guaranteeing these rights, particularly in regard to healthcare’.
He said that around 75% of this had already been agreed, ‘which includes the issue of healthcare’.
Sr Puig said they had also analysed the effects of Brexit on European airspace, ‘an issue that they will be following closely’.
He highlighted that a second meeting on Brexit will ‘in all probability’ take place in Alicante after the summer.
Sr Puig added: “Brexit cannot derail the European project, in fact it should have the opposite effect. It should show us that Europe is the only project worth having for the future.”
To this end, Sr Puig told European leaders later on Wednesday that Europe ‘has to be restructured, based on the regions’ and the EU has to ‘recover its project for social advancement’.
He lamented that a concentration on austerity brought on by the economic crisis had left many citizens in the south of Europe in an extreme situation.
“Inequality has increased, frontline public services have got worse and important investment projects have been postponed,” he noted.
There should be ‘ an increase in EU funding to address inequalities in Europe’.
He called for an increase in transparency, a reduction of bureaucracy and an increase in flexibility.
Valencia’s president also asked for ‘big agreements’ to protect the environment and combat climate change.
He added: “If we do not take into account the aspirations of the people, then disaffection with the European project will grow and populists will take advantage to try to destroy our project for coexistence.”