Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-10-26-Speech-3-335"
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"en.20051026.22.3-335"2
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".
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like first of all to thank the rapporteur for her hard work on this report, and also the Commissioner, for the words of hope she offered on this tormented area of the Mediterranean.
In 1995, an irreversible process was begun in Barcelona, which aimed at closer cooperation between countries in the Mediterranean area. Pessimists will tell us that the results have been below expectations, that economic progress in southern Mediterranean countries has been insufficient, that political dialogue has been difficult and fragmented, that Europe has not been able to make itself heard properly with regard to human rights and democracy, that South-South economic cooperation is still in its infancy, and that results have not been satisfactory in terms of joint management of immigration. The international geopolitical landscape of today’s Mediterranean has certainly changed, and the ambitious project of the Barcelona Process must therefore be modified and adapted to this new international context if the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is to meet the current challenges.
Let us begin, however, with what has been done. We have set up joint inter-ministerial cooperation mechanisms – which will receive no further debate – for the common resolution of problems in that particular area. We have established a Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly to supplement governmental cooperation, in which we work together under parliamentary rules. We have initiated a support programme worth EUR 700 million a year – MEDA – in order to channel resources and development between north and south, which today has achieved some quite attractive rates of implementation. We have set in motion the democratic process, which has started anyway, in coastal countries such as Lebanon, Egypt and, to a certain extent, Palestine. Association agreements have been signed between the European Union and all the southern Mediterranean countries, and there have of course been plenty of examples of cooperation, seemingly minor but very effective on a cultural level, which were all initiated within the wider framework of the Barcelona Agreement.
All that has allowed us to understand one another better, whilst opening the door with a certain optimism to a second decade, when we must consolidate the positive aspects of the process, make more concrete our objectives and current planning, and correct any mistakes made, so that stability, peace, democracy and socio-economic progress may be results shared by an ever greater number of countries and citizens in the Mediterranean area.
One final point I wish to raise is the issue of culture, which is not only about education and training, but also about cultural heritage. If we safeguard our cultural heritage we can understand and respect each another better within the context of our own identities and diversity."@en1
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