- Elena Kountoura urges the European Commission to take immediate measures for island transport connectivity
- She calls for special EU funding in the upcoming EU strategy for islands and coastal communities
- She argues travel costs remain unjustifiably high despite fuel-price trends and no new tax burdens
- Islanders face limited access to healthcare, education, and work
- Weak connectivity also harms tourism, a core economic lifeline for many islands
- She asks whether the Commission will propose legislative and financial measures
- She proposes a dedicated EU funding mechanism in the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework
As Europe prepares a new strategy for island and coastal communities, Greek MEP Elena Kountoura is pressing the European Commission to do something islands have been hearing about for decades: guarantee connectivity in practice, not just on paper.
In her intervention to the Commission, Kountoura argues that many Greek islands and remote areas still deal with restricted accessibility and a travel cost burden that feels disconnected from real-world factors. In simple terms, the ticket prices remain painfully high, even when fuel costs and taxation do not convincingly justify them.
It is the kind of issue islanders understand instinctively. You do not live on an island. You live on an island, and you pay for it.
Connectivity Is Not a Luxury. It Is a Right.
Kountoura frames connectivity as more than an economic concern. She treats it as a right for island residents and a basic condition for EU territorial cohesion.
Because when ferry routes are thin, air routes are priced like luxury goods, and a handful of lines control the map, the consequences land on real people—hard.
She highlights that residents of island regions face disproportionate burdens, including limited access to healthcare services, education, and employment opportunities.
The effect is not subtle. It shapes life choices. It determines whether people stay, whether families can function normally, and whether small island communities can survive without bleeding population.
Tourism Gets Hit First
Argophilia readers already know this part without needing a committee to explain it.
Tourism is not merely “an industry.” On islands, it is the oxygen system—feeding local jobs, seasonal income, suppliers, and services. Kountoura stresses that weak connectivity directly undercuts tourism flows, leaving local economies to suffer before they even have a chance to compete fairly.
You cannot build sustainable tourism if your destination feels like it requires a personal sacrifice to arrive.
Concrete Measures, Not Sympathy
Kountoura asks the Commission to clarify whether it intends to propose specific legislative or financial measures to address inequality between island regions and mainland areas.
More specifically, she asks whether the Commission will act to ensure affordable, reliable, and stable air connectivity, multimodal connectivity (not one route, one operator, one bottleneck), and special protection for tiny islands, especially when competition is low, routes are fragile, and islands depend heavily on one or two connections.
She links this to Article 174 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU, which deals with reducing disparities and supporting regions facing geographical or demographic disadvantages.
A Dedicated EU Mechanism for 2028–2034
Here is the part that matters: she wants money structured into policy—not “funding opportunities” that islands must fight for, as if they were begging for pocket change.
Kountoura asks whether the Commission will support the creation of a special European financial mechanism that would offset the cost of connectivity within the next Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034).
In practical terms, her proposal points to a supplementary Cohesion Policy tool to address persistent structural disadvantages such as isolation, small market size, dependence on limited routes, seasonal instability, and constant vulnerability to price manipulation.
This is not about convenience. It is about long-term social and economic survival.
The intervention comes ahead of the EU’s upcoming strategy for island and coastal communities, where connectivity is finally being treated as a key development factor—something that affects everything else: public services, employment, tourism, and even demographic decline.
Europe can talk about islands as cultural jewels, maritime frontiers, blue-economy zones, and postcard-worthy prestige.
But islands mostly want something less poetic: a ticket that does not feel like punishment.