CIDOB participates in a conference on Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in Crete

"Gemma Pinyol and Jordi Vaquer, the coordinators of the CIDOB Foundation's Migrations and Europe Programmes, respectively, have taken part in the International Conference titled Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: Perspectives from the Mediterranean EU countries, and which was held in Rethimnon (Crete). Gemma Pinyol presented The external dimension of the European Migration Policy: a Spanish perspective, an address that examined the different Spanish initiatives to increase the overseas presence of its policy on immigration, as well as the attempts to ""Europeanise"" this perspective. 

According to the coordinator of the CIDOB Foundation's Migrations Programme, since the Council of Seville in 2002, the Spanish government has attempted to introduce migration issues into the European Union's political agenda. Owing in part to the increased pressure of irregular migration from sub-Saharan countries, since 2005 the Spanish government has deployed a new “migration diplomacy”, which its government would like to see developed into a European policy on immigration. 

Meanwhile, Jordi Vaquer presented What is left of Spain's global approach to the Maghreb?, a study that analyses the evolution of the general rapprochement to Maghreb promoted by Spanish governments during the 1980s. In the opinion of the coordinator of the CIDOB Foundation's Europe Programme, the overall strategy ─ which represents Spain's main reference point in terms of action towards its southern neighbours ─ became called into question following the Perejil crisis, and has continued to be questioned since then. The address analysed what remains of the overall strategy, and presented a summary of its results and actions since 1982 and the legacy of the years in which this strategy became the guideline for Spanish policy in the region. The conference, which was organised by the Institute of International Economic Relations of Athens, the Mediterranean Studies Foundation and the University of Crete, was attended by experts and academics from a number of different Mediterranean countries, including Charalambos Tsardanidis, Nadav Halevi, Stelios Stavridis, Dorothée Schmid and Roderick Pace."