8th Spain – Italy Dialogue Forum / Europe / Activities / CIDOB

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Conference

8th Spain – Italy Dialogue Forum

Date:: 19.Oct.2007
Place:: Toledo
Organised by:: Agency for Research and Legislation (AREL) and CIDOB Foundation

19 and 20 October 2007

The Spain – Italy Dialogue Forum brings representatives from civil society together in an annual encounter that has been taking place annually in the two countries on an alternating basis since 1999. After the previous encounters in Genoa, Barcelona, Rome, Valencia, Milan, Jaen – Granada, and Verona, this 8th Forum will take place in Toledo, on the 19th and 20th of October, 2007.

The Forum is reaching its eighth meeting at an especially intense time in the relations between the two countries. On the one hand, the business world has been witness to important operations that have united first-order business projects in key sectors, such as infrastructures, telecommunications and energy, creating unprecedented complicity and synergy between the two economies. On the other hand, the European political environment has changed substantially: the scenario following the constitutional crisis and the renewal of leadership in Germany, France and Great Britain threaten to displace the Latin powers from the heart of decision-making in Europe, despite their determined commitment to integration. Finally, the most immediate challenges in the Mediterranean region are far from being overcome, and some of them, like the lack of growth in the countries on the southern shore and the migrations that pass through this area, affect Italy and Spain directly and intensely.

The Dialogue Forum, in which prominent figures in the civil societies of the two countries can freely discuss these current issues, is an ideal framework for promoting new ideas and proposing joint action to the Spanish and Italian governments. With this idea in mind, the Forum will serve to reach consensus on concrete proposals that can be submitted to the executive branches of the two governments in a timely way, just prior to their bilateral summit, which is scheduled for the latter half of November 2007.