Brussels, 07/02/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary forum will be holding its second session on 8 and 9 February in Brussels, at the European Parliament, with the participation of 180 elected representatives from the 27 countries involved in the Barcelona Process (the Fifteen plus Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Cyprus and Malta). "The experience gained since the Barcelona Conference (Ed.: the meeting which had launched the process at ministerial level in November 1995) shows the need to strengthen the parliamentary dimension of this dialogue to breathe new life into Euro-Mediterranean partnership", write the co-presidents, Ms Nicole Fontaine and Mr Abdelwahab Radhi, President of Morocco's House of Representatives, in their letter of invitation to the various assemblies concerned (European Parliament, national parliaments in the Member States and in the twelve partner countries).
The idea of creating such a Forum emerged in the context of the ups and downs of the Barcelona process and the disputes that had marred relations between the Commission and the European Parliament on the subject of how the MEDA (financial cooperation) and MED (decentralised cooperation, frozen since this time) programmes work. The MEPs had also the feeling they were not sufficiently involved in the political management of the Euro-Mediterranean process and, on several occasions, they expressed the hope that the Forum would become a formal structure allowing interparliamentary dialogue to be developed. The initiative is still in its early stages, despite the discussions developed during the first session, on 27 and 28 October 1998 in Brussels. It stumbled, however, against the question of the internal regulation that the European party wished to have adopted by the MEPs and the parliamentarians of the twelve Mediterranean third countries. The latter had, nonetheless, felt it was too early to be linked from the outset by rules fixed in a text, preferring to work and to decide by consensus, and hence by unanimity (not by two-third majority vote as proposed). The organisers of the second meeting, this week, therefore chose not to include this point on their agenda - and at any rate not to take the initiative to place emphasis on it - in order to avoid all failure, all the more as the session took place the day after the Israeli elections whose outcome could affect the serenity of debates.
The examination of the situation in the Middle East does not appear on the agenda, but it is not to be ruled out that this point may be added. It is known that Palestinian and Israeli delegations will be present, unlike those of Syria and Lebanon. These two countries thus persist in their refusal - confirmed during the 4th ministerial session last November in Marseilles - to be alongside the Israelis. Libya, invited like Mauritania as an observer, will probably not be at the meeting.
We recall that several preparatory meetings have taken place since 1998, mainly on 7 and 8 March 1999 in Palma de Mallorca and from 22 to 24 March 2000 in Alexandria, at the level of the presidents of the assemblies of the twenty-seven countries and with the participation of the president of the European Parliament. They made it possible to settle a dispute between the EP and the parliaments of Member States concerning the repartition of European representatives admitted (elected and not, as the intention declared by the Scandinavian countries and Great Britain, appointed officials). There would be 45 members for the European Parliament and 45 for the national parliaments, as opposed to 90 elected representatives of the partner countries.