For a common future in the Mediterranean
The financial and economic crisis, with its repercussions in Greece and possibly other European Mediterranean countries next, demands more from Europe – more solidarity and more regulation.
At the same time, the rise of the major emerging countries, organized into regional blocks (East Asia, Alena and Mercosur), continues.
The equation that led to the creation of UFM in 2008 is more relevant than ever:
• The Euro-Mediterranean basin is just the right size; by establishing this economic and financial area tomorrow, with its 500 million people in the North and 500 million in the South, we will be able to build on its assets of proximity, complementarity and social responsibility, and carry weight in the global marketplace;
• United projects, that mobilize private stakeholders and particularly business, are the way to overcome the public finance crisis;
• North-South parity is indispensible for regaining confidence and assuring international regulation.
The future cannot wait. It must not be filled with our unresolved conflicts and collective weaknesses. The time has come to construct a common future for all Europeans, Arab-Muslims, Turks and Israelis.
The present propositions are the fruit of two years’ work. This work has drawn from numerous partnerships that can be seen in the names figuring on these pages, including experts from both sides of the Mediterranean, forecasting and research institutions from countries in the region, companies and business groups, and NGOs working on Euro-Mediterranean economic development.
IPEMED never works in competition with existing expert centres or the political and diplomatic process.
We are a think tank, and our only ambition is to help remove any obstacles to building the region.
The propositions concern the sectorial domains at the centre of the region’s main challenges, i.e. the creation of a common financial area, a joint response to the water issue, cooperation in the rural and agricultural domain to tackle food insecurity, and the launch of a common energy policy.
Success also involves cross-cutting actions: launching a Euro-Mediterranean migration policy; producing shared, visionary, proactive foresight for the region, without which we cannot rally together for a common future; substituting professional mobility for immigration, so that we can make the Union through its people; and organizing a spatial planning policy for the region, to build a Mediterranean area of territories, towns and regions. Two actions complete our propositions: intermixing the leaders of tomorrow’s Mediterranean; and supporting trans-Mediterranean professional networks, which are starting to weave their way through our region’s territory and economy.
IPEMED adds double value to these propositions.
Firstly, because it places businesses at the heart of projects, alongside public decision-makers. Then, because it plans genuine common policies, common rules and authorities that would obtain significant skills from the region’s states. We are building for the future: we know that it will be a long journey and that the decision to get going lies in the hands of the states, spurred on by the UFM’s General Secretariat in Barcelona. Yet the propositions presented here must be understood as part of a long-term process that should, in twenty or thirty years, lead to a real Union. The Euro-Mediterranean’s economic stakeholders are allready at work.
Radhi Meddeb, president
Jean-Louis Guigou, general delegate
PROJECTS
- Working towards better integration in the Mediterranean Financial Area
- Food security and the right to food in the Mediterranean
- A “Mediterranean Water Agency” to move from strategy to action
- Make energy the first common Euro- Mediterranean Policy
- Make the Union through its people: a “migratory ECSC”
- Make a Mediterranean area of territories, towns and regions
- “Mediterranean 2030” forecast
- Trans-Mediterranean professional economic networks
