Mediterranean Programme - [06/09/2008]

Civil protection and Euro-Mediterranean cooperation

On 6 June, Tunisian and European academics - including Eduard Soler, Coordinator of the Mediterranean Programme at the CIDOB Foundation - met in Tunis to debate new cooperation methods in Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. This seminar took place as part of a EuroMeSCo study aimed at analysing the advantages of cooperating in smaller, more flexible groups in order to avoid the obstructions that can hinder Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, especially in sensitive issues such as security. In the same way that in the EU, the Euro and the Schengen agreement do not contradict European integration, but instead strengthen it, the same could take place in the Mediterranean. In addition to the CIDOB Foundation, l'Association d'Études Internationales (AEI) of Tunis and the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) also participated in the study.

In this sense, cooperation in the area of civil protection (fires, floods, earthquakes, etc.) is a clear example of the virtues and potentials of this methodology. As the seminar's participants pointed out, cooperation in this field is, to a large extent, the result of an initiative that was initially headed by Italy and Egypt, followed by Algeria and France, after which it was incorporated onto the general Euro-Mediterranean agenda. Furthermore, other areas were analysed such as 5+5 (Western Mediterranean) and the response of the United Nations to this issue.

As participants mentioned during the seminar, the proposal of the Union for the Mediterranean is another example of this attempt to seek more flexible cooperation methods, especially in the execution of projects. Nevertheless, the researchers who met in Tunis claimed that this issue, which was one of the most interesting characteristics of the initial proposals, is not sufficiently reflected in more recent proposals, such as that of the Commission Communication of 20 May.

In general terms, participants concluded that cooperation in the area of civil protection should continue in the different areas in which it is being carried out. Cooperating in these issues can, over the long term, help to generate trust between the security sectors on both sides of the Mediterranean. Moreover, it was claimed that the experience of cooperating within a flexible multilateral framework could be exported to other thematic areas such as energy, desertification and maritime surveillance, without creating feelings of exclusion.

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