Mediterranean Programme - [06/24/2007]

Mediterranean policies debated in Berlin

Eduard Soler, coordinator of the CIDOB Foundation's Mediterranean Programme, has participated in a number of seminars within the RAMSES 2 project, as part of the EU's sixth research framework programme on Mediterranean policies. Together with Esther Barbé - professor of International Relations at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) - Soler produced a study on Catalan Mediterranean policies.

In the study, the authors conclude that the Catalan government's Mediterranean policy has been motivated by different kinds of factors, given that symbolic elements (achieving the status of an international actor) have been particularly important. Soler and Barbé also stress that this policy has undergone a significant evolution that has led to an improvement in the instruments available. Catalan policy, they argue, has gone from having a restricted perspective of the Latin Mediterranean to the present situation, in which this perspective covers the entire Euro-Mediterranean region.

The seminars represented the perfect end to more than a year of joint endeavour, during which time many areas have come in for analysis, including the Mediterranean policies of various European, Arabian Israeli actors, as well as the sphere of influence of governments and civil society.

This study, which has been produced by some 40 researchers, was headed by Dr. Isabelle Schäffer of the Free University of Berlin and Dr. Jean-Robert Henry, of IREMAM in Aix-en-Provence; the work is to be published in a joint volume in 2008. The study analyses the design and application of different Mediterranean policies, focusing on a variety of aspects, including the way in which governmental priorities have been adopted by civil society, and vice versa; it also assesses the impact of the European Neighbourhood Policy on different Mediterranean policies.

In addition to the Catalan study, a presentation was made - at the Free University of Berlin on June 22 and 23 - of the results of studies on the Mediterranean policies of different states, as well as those of actors from civil society. The presentation featured renowned experts such as Bahgat Korany of the American University in Cairo, Tuomo Melasuo of Tampere Peace Research Institute and Khadija Mohsen-Finan of IFRI. Prior to the presentation, a public debate was held at the Egyptian embassy in which the Euro-Mediterranean region's challenges were analysed from a wider perspective. The event was opened by Abdelwahad Radi, the president of the Moroccan parliament, and featured contributions by academics and representatives from the diplomatic and political world.

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