The Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), Nasser Kamel, said in an interview with EUROPE on Monday 1 April that it is necessary for Mediterranean cooperation to move forward in the coming years.
“It's almost fate that we have to move forward in the coming years”, he explained. According to Mr Kamel, “Europe, with its eastern and southern neighbours, is destined to become a significant bloc in an increasingly integrated world”. "Without its two neighbourhoods, the EU will not be able to create a growth zone, either within its own borders or in its neighbourhood", he warned.
The Secretary General asserted that, since 2015, i.e. after the Arab springs, the UfM has regained its momentum. “We recognise the need to strengthen this framework. Even if the geopolitical situation is not perfect, it has improved”, he explained. And according to Mr Kamel, the two sides of the Mediterranean have yet to become closer. “We must move towards a free trade area, with an interconnected infrastructure”, he added, citing energy and transport.
Mobility is also essential: “We must talk intelligently about mobility and legal migration, to manage demographic problems with Europe in demographic decline and a rapidly growing South. Europe can take advantage of this to invest in the South, which is a win-win situation, so that Europe can remain an economic power that carries weight on the international scene while allowing the South to develop”.
‘Employment and work in the Mediterranean area’ is the subject of the UfM ministerial conference which is being held from 1 to 3 April in Cascais (Portugal) in the presence of Commissioner Marianne Thyssen. “Employment is the biggest challenge, especially in the southern Mediterranean, where 30% of young people are unemployed and the numbers are likely to grow if the right strategy is not adopted. There is also a fairly significant employment problem in southern Europe. The challenge increases when we see that unemployment is increasing in the most educated categories. We need to create a vital link between the labour market and skills", said Mr Kamel, adding that this requires working with employers and young people to provide them with the skills they need in emerging digital economies. The Secretary General also explained that the problem was not so much the brain drain - as many young people go to study or work abroad and then return - but the fact that "it is difficult to create jobs for them”.
The UfM is therefore developing a flagship initiative within this project: ‘Med4Jobs', which brings together 13 different projects focusing on the employability of young people and their skills. The objective of the initiative is to help increase the employability of young people and women, to close the gap between labour supply and demand, and to foster a culture of entrepreneurship and private sector development. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)