24/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - The International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM), which brings together mutual benefit organisations active in the field of sickness insurance and social protection cover, has called on the Barcelona Summit to include the reinforcement of social protection and health care in the priorities for the second decade of the euro-Mediterranean process. AIM regrets the fact that the socio-medical dimension is insufficiently taken into account in the Euromed partnership, either in the funding of the MEDA programme or that of the European Investment Bank, and notes that since 1995, just one euro-Mediterranean sectorial conference has been given over to the issue of health care. Of the southern Mediterranean countries, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon and Israel are members of AIM.