Traduction de «Aide à la mécanisation en montagne » (Français → Anglais) :

4. Calls for the inclusion of a specific European integrated and flexible policy framework, with legal and financial implications, for dealing with the mountain regions, islands and sparsely populated areas based on their shared features but taking into account the diverse situations and following the principle of proportionality; is of the opinion that that Cohesion Policy should address the situation of the mountain regions, islands and sparsely populated areas not just through Regional Policy, but also using other EU policies that have a significant territorial impact on the development of these regions; believes that an European po ...[+++]licy framework for mountain regions, islands and sparsely populated areas may have the needed added value to overcome the permanent handicaps of these regions and adapt their development model utilising their assets;

at a lower altitude, the presence over the greater part of the area in question of slopes too steep for the use of machinery or requiring the use of very expensive special equipment, or a combination of these two factors, where the handicap resulting from each taken separately is less acute but the combination of the two gives rise to an equivalent handicap.

As has been pointed out, our tariffs continue to be very low, European products are still unable to compete with those originating above all from Turkey and the United States, as a result of social and labour costs or because the crops, in the case of the United States, are in irrigable areas and are mechanisable while those in the European Union are in drought areas which are not easily accessible, where there is little chance of mechanisation, and it is therefore true that they are less comp ...[+++]etitive.

Given the experience acquired in the field of rural development under the LEADER programme and the lessons that could be drawn from pilot projects on land-use planning implemented under the TERRA programme, it is proposed that a strategy be formulated designed to improve the integrated regional approach to mountain areas, taking into account the interaction between various decisionmaking levels (vertical integration) and in particular that a seminar should be held on 'mountain regions and land-use planning'; a communication from the Commission ...[+++] to the Council on EU mountain regions should be drawn up, extending and adapting to mountain regions the method applied to coastal areas as set out in the Commission communication to the Council and the European Parliament on the integrated management of coastal zones; on the basis of that communication, a Community action plan for mountain areas should be drawn up and submitted to the Council for approval, grouping together horizontally a package of measures which could be carried out by the Union under different Community regulations, programmes and initiatives.

In any case, the European Union needs to develop a global, integrated and coherent approach to mountain regions, in order to gain a better grasp of the vast diversity of these regions, strengthening rather than jeopardizing Community cohesion through cooperation and solidarity between mountain areas.

The plan of action would be based on instruments, regulations and measures geared exclusively to mountain regions; this would involve programmes or parts of programmes, taking into account specifically the needs of mountain regions in the context of the new Community initiatives, particularly cross-border, international and interregional cooperation and rural development, and new innovative measures and technical assistance provided for under the Structural Funds for certain sectors crucial to the future of mountain regions (tourism, telecommunications, transport, education, training and research, equal opportunities).