Brussels, 06/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Secretary General Youssef Amrani has been officially installed in his post in Barcelona by the two joint presidents, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppé and Egyptian deputy minister Ahmed Fathallah. Also present were Trinidad Jiménez of Spain and Taieb Fassi Fihri of Morocco, the official Moroccan press agency MAP reports, without any reference to the representatives of the European institutions who attended.
The agency reports that Amrani spoke of the “various expectations of the Euro-Mediterranean countries” which share “the same approach, based on the need to implement tangible projects which can have a real impact on the lives of citizens”. He welcomed the EU's resumption in the next few days of political consultations with the counties of the South to finalise the new neighbourhood policy. This, he said, was “a consultative approach which reinforces the equal and associative nature of this partnership, which put the UfM at the heart of the EU strategy towards its neighbourhood”. The EU's response to such expectations “must be swift, comprehensive and innovative”, he said, according to MAP. He highlighted the importance of “seizing the opportunity to work together to design a new regional instrument which can complement the bilateral dimension”.
Amrani wants the EU to send a “strong political signal”, “with the development of a common strategy that can be seen by leaders and citizens alike from both shores”. The time “has come for Europe to seize the opportunity to make a qualitative and quantitative leap in relations with the countries of the South”. “On the cultural level, improving peoples' knowledge of one another, mutual comprehension and intercultural exchanges between the two shores are what is needed”, he said. (F.B./transl.rt)