The Gozo Business Chamber has submitted its feedback to the European Commission’s Call for Evidence on the Right to Stay Strategy: Your Region, Your Future.
The Chamber welcomes this initiative, which is particularly relevant to island regions such as Gozo, where the ability to remain, work, invest, raise a family and build a future is shaped by accessibility, economic opportunity, education, skills, public services, digital connectivity, housing and quality of life.
In its response, the Chamber highlights that the Right to Stay should not be understood only as the physical possibility of remaining in one’s region, but as the practical ability to access meaningful opportunities from within that region.
The Chamber emphasises that Gozo should not be approached as a backward region. Rather, it is a resilient and economically contributing island economy which continues to face structural disparities, particularly in relation to sectoral composition, connectivity constraints, and the limited presence of certain higher value-added, export-oriented, and knowledge-intensive sectors.
The Chamber therefore argues that, in the case of Gozo, the Right to Stay should be linked to developmental adjustment rather than remedial classification. This means creating the conditions through which Gozo can diversify its economic base, strengthen innovation, support entrepreneurship, retain young talent and attract higher value-added activity.
The response also underlines that accessibility and connectivity are preconditions for the Right to Stay in an island region. In Gozo, connectivity is not simply a transport issue. It affects business continuity, labour mobility, freight reliability, access to services, tourism flows, emergency preparedness and quality of life.
The Chamber further stresses the need for coherence between the Right to Stay Strategy and the forthcoming EU Strategy for Islands, particularly in relation to insularity, territorial proofing, regional data, State aid flexibility, cohesion policy, transport, skills, innovation and the structural costs faced by island regions.
Through its submission, the Gozo Business Chamber reiterates that the Right to Stay should ensure that island residents are not forced to leave their communities to access opportunity, but are able to build careers, develop businesses, participate in innovation and thrive in the place they call home.
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