Brussels, 11/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Bureau of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (PA UfM) met in Brussels, on Friday 8 June. European Parliament (EP) President Martin Schulz, who currently chairs the Bureau, and the other three members (the Speakers of the Moroccan, Jordanian and Portuguese parliaments) took part in the meeting, along with UfM President Fathallah Sijilmassi. The meeting was preceded the previous day by a seminar which was addressed by the chairs of the three thematic committees (policy, economy and culture) and external figures whose task it was to clear away the haze around Euro-Mediterranean policy that has been made ever denser by persistent conflict in the Middle East and the recent upheavals in the southern rim.
During a press conference, Schulz gave his conclusions after a day and a half of discussions: determination to continue to build the UfM and to make it an “effective instrument” for Euro-Mediterranean integration so long as the political will of the member states is assured. There is a massive void in the most important and most sensitive of the world's regions, he noted. The PA UfM intends to rejuvenate the organisation and to make apposite proposals, in cooperation with, for instance, the European Investment Bank (EIB), and to instigate concrete measures, rather than adopting bombastic attitudes.
One of the first decisions will be to appoint a contact figure to assure the link between the EP and the UfM Secretariat General in Barcelona. A further idea is to hold a large-scale forum in Marseilles at the end of 2012/beginning of 2013 focusing on Euro-Mediterranean societies. Moroccan parliament Speaker Karim Ghellab pointed out the obstacle which is the lack of rules on mobility, noting that his country had proposed a structured dialogue on three issues: legal migration, security and tackling illegal migration. “We fully understand this concern”, said European Neighbourhood Policy Commissioner Stafan Füle, who attended the press conference, rejecting, nonetheless, the impression of a “fortress Europe” and stating that talks, both domestic and external, on mobility agreements were in progress.
Discussions during the seminar generally reflected a desire to revitalise the UfM, even though some speakers suggested putting the focus back on matters political, the very ones which paralysed the Barcelona Process, and then the UfM in its early stages. There is a risk, Schulz acknowledged, and, given the great differences between members, that risk is “considerable”.
Sijilmassi, without responding directly to the issue of a “political trap” which might be waiting for an organisation dedicated more to projects, repeated the desire to concentrate more on the tangible: “We need political support to drive forward new regional ideas and projects”, he said counting on the backing of the European institutions and the EIB and EBRD, “without seeking to duplicate what already exists”. (FB/transl.rt)