ANALYSIS – The French territories in the Pacific Ocean have special treatment in Europe with associate member status and a different currency, the Pacific franc.
Out of sight out of mind. 17,000 kilometers from Notre-Dame in Paris, Saint-Pierre in Rome and the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Nouméa is clearly not in the heart of Europe. More surprising than this geographical observation, New Caledonia and its 18,576 km2 are also not part of the European Union, according to the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (of 2012) which sets its borders. Its status is that of “overseas countries and territories”an OCT (official acronym) “attached to the French Republic and associated with the EU”.
New Caledonia is certainly not the only region to have this special status which limits rights and constraints vis-à-vis Europe. This is particularly the case for Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. We remember that Donald Trump, then President of the United States, proposed in 2019 to buy this immense territory of 2.1 million km2 from Copenhagen as if it were a commodity and not a fraction of ‘Sovereign state…
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