Brussels, 21/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - At its fifth plenary session, to be held in Tangiers (Morocco) on Monday, ARLEM (Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly, which is known by its French acronym) will take stock of its activity over the last year, with particular reference to the major challenge caused by political upheaval on the southern shore. The “territorial dimension” of the euro-Mediterranean policy will be central to these debates between more than 80 representatives of the countries of the Mediterranean area and the EU represented at this meeting, held under the aegis of the Committee of the Regions of the EU and Morocco.
Two reports will be put forward for discussion. One of these was drafted by the committee on economic, social and territorial affairs (ECOTER) on a cohesion strategy for the Mediterranean. A suggestion will be made to extend the recent European experience of the macro-regions to the Mediterranean region, as this could be applied to areas covered by “5+5” dialogue (countries of the Western, northern and southern Mediterranean). The other was drafted by the committee on sustainable development (SUDEV) on urban mobility in the Mediterranean area. The session will also analyse the working focuses of the European neighbourhood policy. ARLEM will also present its members with an initiative on “Capacity building in urban policies”, which it hopes to make a “labelled” Euro-Mediterranean project.
The co-presidents of the Assembly, Spain's' Ramon Luis Valcarcel Siso, who is the chair of the CoR of the EU, and the Egyptian Youssef Ali Abd-El Rahman will also present an overview of the decentralisation process underway in all countries, working from the example of Tunisia, which has just adopted its constitutional charter. A member of the country's constitutive assembly will be taking part in the work in order to report back on the results, an authorised source stated. (FB/transl.fl)