This will enable them to reduce their handicaps (particularly peripheral location) and develop their assets by reinforcing the competitiveness of businesses, especially SMEs.

8. Notes the conditions of economic crisis and the social problems that are affecting many areas, particularly islands, above all in the Mediterranean and especially those which are very distant from the mainland; underscores that the remoteness of the islands in relation to the single market exposes them to industrial and economic stagnation and depopulation, which must be the target of specific measures on the part of the EU institutions; urges the Commission, therefore, to consider establishing free zones as a tool which, by reducing the tax burden and attracting foreign direct investment, could halt the downward spiral that is affe ...[+++]cting island areas by driving growth and development;

However, the Specific Provisions of the ERDF proposal may be examined against one criterion called 'the syndrome of peripherality'.

1. Considers it imperative that an EU policy geared to economic and social cohesion should address the syndrome of peripherality stemming from two categories of characteristics: structural deficiencies in key factors of competitiveness, due to low per capita income, lack of innovative capacity, low level of environmental capital and high cost of services, and regional disparities; .

Although she gave a general reply earlier in relation to Spain, I would like, if you will permit me, to ask about a specific aspect which has a lot to do with peripheral regions, or rather the most peripheral of the peripheral regions – the Galician Finisterre.

Regionalization is often an alternative to peripheralization, which, in an increasingly integrated Europe, is a threat both to areas on the margins of nation states and to those which are geographically remote from the economic and political centres of the Community as a whole.