The Diplomat
The Secretary of State for the European Union, Juan González-Barba, has traveled to Finland accompanied by representatives of four autonomous communities to address issues of common interest, such as the demographic challenge and insularity.
González-Barba was accompanied by the Vice-Presidents of Castilla-La Mancha and Castilla y León, Pedro Martínez and Francisco Igea, the Regional Minister of the Presidency and Institutional Relations of Aragón, María Teresa Pérez, and the Regional Minister of Finance and External Relations of the Balearic Islands, Rosario Sánchez. This is the first trip of the Secretary of State with high-level regional representatives in the framework of a bilateral visit to an EU country.
The objective of this trip was to collaborate closely on some of the issues of greatest interest for the Autonomous Communities and of special relevance in the EU agenda, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press release. According to González-Barba, it is very important that the European institutions take into account the phenomena associated with depopulation and insularity in the context of the post-pandemic economic recovery, since the inhabited islands are the ones that have suffered most economically in recent months and the new digital agenda could open new opportunities for the less populated regions.
For this purpose, Finland was chosen because it is an EU Member State facing extreme and structural circumstances of depopulation and has the only European island region with political autonomy in the Baltic: the Åland Islands. Moreover, the demographic challenge and insularity will be particularly relevant in view of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU in 2023. Finland is also one of the most advanced countries in digital transformation, so the trip has allowed to know in situ some of the Finnish solutions to mitigate the negative effects suffered by these territories, with the aim of establishing cooperation with Finland and the regions visited in this area.
The visit of the Secretary of State was divided into two parts: a first visit to the north of Finland, to the city of Oulu, where he was accompanied by the vice-presidents of Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León and the Councilor of Aragón (the three autonomous communities signatories of the Declaration of Talavera against depopulation); and another visit to the Åland Islands, where he was accompanied by the Councilor of the Balearic Islands.
During the visit, González-Barba held bilateral consultations in the city of Oulu with the Finnish Minister for European Affairs and Public Enterprise, Tytti Tuppurainen, and in Helsinki with Jari Luoto, Secretary of State for European Affairs in the Prime Minister’s Office. Separately, the State Secretary and regional authorities met with the Mayor of Oulu, Päivi Laajala, and the Regional Council, and visited research and development and 6G projects at the University of Oulu and Nokia’s 5G test lab. The visit to the Åland Islands allowed González-Barba and the Balearic Minister to hold meetings with the President of the Regional Parliament, the Vice-President of the regional government of the archipelago, the Governor and the Mayor of the capital, Marienhamn.
