The Diplomat in Spain

Pedralbes Palace, Union for the Mediterranean’s headquarters in Barcelona.

Luis Ayllón. 05/07//2018

On October 8, Barcelona will host the III Regional Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), a moment that the Foreign Minister, Josep Borrell, wants to use to give a new boost to an institution that, this year, celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Yesterday, Borrell pointed out before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress that the Spanish Government wishes to promote “an initiative that has been resting and languishing”, after being launched in Paris by the then French president, Nicolás Sarkozy, in an attempt to relaunch the Euro-Mediterranean Conference of 1995 held in Barcelona.

The UfM, whose headquarters are in Barcelona, has already held another two regional forums, in 2015 and at the beginning of 2017, and it has had a new secretary general for the past few months, the Egyptian Nasser Kamel, who was in Madrid recently to meet Borrell.

In the meeting, those present addressed the preparation of the forum of October, in which the Foreign Ministers, or those in whom they delegate, of 43 countries of the EU and of the south shore of the Mediterranean, which are part of the UfM, will participate.

Yesterday, Borrell regretted certain abandonment of the UfM and insisted that the promotion for the development of the southern Mediterranean and the management of the migratory flows must be “pillars” of the Spanish foreign policy.

[hr style=»single»]

The UfM supports the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Research on Migration

[hr style=»single»]

Also yesterday, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) expressed its support to the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Network of Research on Migration, a project whose objective is the promotion of training, research and transmission of knowledge between educational institutions on both sides of the Mediterranean. Its purpose is “to contribute to the analysis of the causes of migration and the interdependences, the management of diversity and intercultural relations, as well as the development of migration studies and Mediterranean studies”, according to a statement of the UfM.

The initiative, which includes more than 600 researchers of countries of the Euro-Mediterranean region, has been created during the Annual Conference IMISCOE, held in Barcelona from Monday to Wednesday, under the title ‘Europe, migrations and the Mediterranean: Intercultural challenges and human mobility’.

The Euro-Mediterranean Network of Research on Migration will be an interdisciplinary initiative made up of research institutions on both sides of the Mediterranean and whose objective will be the promotion of exchanges in this area and the promotion of knowledge about migration and diversity matters.