Brussels, 11/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Industrial Employers Federations (UNICE from the Member States and the Mediterranean countries involved in the Barcelona process will gather this Friday and Saturday, the 12 and 13 May, in Tunis. The aim of this meeting, baptised "Euro-Mediterranean industrial summit" and jointly organised by UNICE and UTICA (the Tunisian employers federation) is to prepare the 3rd Euro-Mediterranean Industry Ministers Conference (Limassol/Cyprus, 21-23 June) by adopting conclusions and recommendations targeted at the private sector. The participants will take into account the results of the Euro-Mediterranean conference on investment, which took place in Lisbon from last 28 February to the 1 March and work by the European Commission to draft a new industrial co-operation strategy (see EUROPE of 3 May, p.13).
UNICE informs that the Tunis meeting will be the platform for the official launch of the UNIMED-Business network, which gathers the employers groups and which will have a budget of EUR 3.4 million over 3 years (of which 2.5 million are Community resources).
This "very ambitious" programme, according to Mr. Francois Périgueux, former UNICE President aiming to contribute to the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean free trade area and call on the similar federations in the Southern Mediterranean to prepare themselves and adapt to this change, which will be marked by strong European competition on their national markets. Support, information and networking actions from all the employer organisations in the Euro-Mediterranean area will be concluded in this framework. For Mr. Périgot, the regional economic integration (between the partners) is essential "to favour sustainable economic development in the region and to establish a (multilateral) free trade area. "For lack of better integrated markets, the investments will be limited and integration between the northern and southern shore of the Mediterranean basin will not be easy," he asserted.