Vasilis Margaras is a Ph.D. candidate at Loughborough University. Since 2003 he has been working as a part-time research assistant and visiting lecturer in European Studies at the University of Wolverhampton. Vasilis completed a work placement in the European Parliament with Simon Murphy MEP in 1998, and has worked for various political candidates. His wider academic interests include the European Union’s foreign, security and defense policies as well as comparative European politics.

In January, Dr Margaras published an eight-page briefing on the “Islands of the EU: Taking account of their specific needs in EU policy” for the EPRS (European Parliamentary Research Service), see below. It’s a good read! Let me quote a few words from page 6: “Island leaders argue that, due to their small populations, an increase in EU funding for insular territories would have only a small impact on the total EU budget, but this minimal increase of funding would provide a significant boost to insular territories.”

This congenial paper could well be a ESIN statement.

Islands of the EU

http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=EPRS_BRI%282016%29573960