Given that the Russian Federation is responsible for only some 5% of fishery resources in the Baltic Sea, in very small areas around Kaliningrad and St Petersburg, the scope of the agreement is relatively limited.

9. Takes the view that an essential precondition for innovation capacity building in the EU, including in the outermost regions, outlying territories, mountainous and island regions as well as rural areas, is unhindered and free – or extremely cheap – broadband access to

Against this background of empirically established data the rapporteur sees it as significant that while the present upswing is accompanied by a further rise in EU export success (up 8.5 % in 2006), the recently improved export performance only accounts for a small proportion of the recovery (only 0.3 percentage points of the current 2.6 % upswing in the euro area).

Other more remote rural areas have to contend with a highly dispersed and ageing population, poor technical and social infrastructures, inadequate services, and weak links with the rest of the economy.

3. In the case of farms in rural areas where the structural difficulties caused by the very small size of farms make it particularly difficult to meet the requirements of Article 5 of Regulation (EC) No 1257/1999, Member States may grant such farms support for investments totalling less than EUR 25000 to enable them to comply with those requirements within a period of not more than three years from the date of the decision to grant the support.

Whereas where there is a combination of the two abovementioned factors, the criteria used are a minimum altitude of 500 metres and an average slope of 15 % ; whereas only a very few of the communes proposed do not fully satisfy the conditions required but nevertheless fully satisfy those of Article 3 (4) of Directive 75/268/EEC ; whereas since their economies are closely linked with those of their neighbouring communes and, in most cases, their areas are enclosed within those communes and clearly smaller, it is nevertheless possible to classify these communes within the mountain areas;