This is the first time that a President of the Territorial Council of Saint-Martin has participated in a plenary meeting of the monitoring committee for European programs, in Guadeloupe. Plenary meetings organized in Saint-Martin in the past preceded the official meeting of the monitoring committee in Guadeloupe.
It was indeed essential that the Collectivity of Saint-Martin be present, and well represented, with major decisions for the territory being put on the agenda. This plenary followed in particular the technical meeting held in Saint-Martin.
The main purpose of this fifth monitoring committee was to modify the two operational ERDF-ESF programs, managed by the Regional Council and by the State. It also made it possible to take stock of the state of progress in the implementation of the various programs hosting the European structural and investment funds (ERDF, ESF, YEI, FEADER, EMFF, INTERREG).
With regard specifically to our territory, the revision of the OP for the 2014-2020 period, which specifically concerns the ERDF component of Saint Martin, was approved by the monitoring committee; its official submission to the authorities of the European Commission will take place in the coming days.
The objective displayed by this modification is to allow the ERDF to contribute both to the reconstruction effort of the island and to the revival of economic activity.
It is indeed a question of seizing the opportunity offered by the revision of the general regulation of the European structural and investment funds (ESIF) intervened on July 4, 2017 to create a reconstruction axis.
In his speech, President Gibbs indicated that “this new axis must, above all, make it possible to provide an additional response to the colossal challenges of reconstruction and rehabilitation of the water and sanitation networks, our schools and collective, social, cultural and sports facilities. "
Thus, € 12 million will be devoted to this post-Irma reconstruction axis. It is also important to specify that operations supported by the ERDF under this axis may benefit from an exceptional subsidy rate of 95%.
This modification of the State OP should also make it possible to focus a large part of ERDF interventions on the reconstruction of hotel accommodation and support for investment projects in tourism products.
President Gibbs made this choice: "despite the difficult context of the reconstruction of our island, I remain determined to place tourist activity at the heart of the development of the territory ...", he declared, recalling that "the scheme territorial planning and tourism development 2017-2027, adopted by the territorial council last November, in particular made the immediate reconstruction of the high-end accommodation stock a sine qua non for the resumption of tourist activity and more generally, the economic recovery. ".
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