Brussels, 18/09/2012 (Agence Europe) - After France and Italy, Greece and Cyprus - two of the six European countries bordering on the Mediterranean - are giving their support for reactivation of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).
The Greek minister, Dimitris L. Avramopoulos, who welcomed the UfM secretary general, Fathallah Sijilmassi, to Athens on 13 September, pledges to make this one of the priority issues of his EU presidency during the first term of 2014. He said that Mediterranean policy will be at the “heart of their activities” as of 1 January 2014, and told Sijilmassi that he will seek to “strengthen cooperation between Greece and the UfM Secretariat especially in sectors of special interest for Greece, namely renewable energies, environment and water, tourism and maritime transport”.
Cyprus also undertakes to give fresh momentum to the UfM, according to its foreign minister, Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis. After an interview in Nicosia with Sijilmassi, on Friday 14 September, she said her country remains a “strong advocate of the UfM” made up of 43 countries from the EU and the Mediterranean rim, and that this has been the case “from the very beginning”. She promised that Cyprus will endeavour to promote “the unique added value of the UfM during its current holding of the Presidency of the Council of the EU, despite Turkey's stance which has brought the process to a standstill”.
Kozakou-Marcoullis expressed regret that, due to Turkish objections, the UfM timetable is empty of events until end 2012. She recognised that the effort made by Cyprus to relaunch the Euro-Mediterranean process has not been successful. (FB/transl.jl)