The following talk was delivered at Euromed Summit of Economic and Social Councils and Similar Institutions 2015 which “aims at promoting greater understanding of the main issues affecting organised civil society in the Euromed region and at discussing the common challenges they face”.
This year’s summit aimed at exploring the following topics:
- The situation in the region twenty year after the Barcelona Process
- The new European Neighbourhood Policy
- The role of the social partners in the consolidation of political democracy
- Migration
And the panel in which this talk was delivered was titled: A new European Neighbourhood Policy moderated by Marianne Nati-Stoffel, Secretary-General of the Luxembourg ESC to try answering some urgent questions:
- To what extent will the EU’s new neighbourhood policy enable it to respond to the challenges facing the region?
- What are the key issues for the Euromed region right now?
- How do relations between the EU and its southern neighbourhood currently stand?
Participants came from different political, social, governmental and non-governmental bodies as follows:
- Sergio Piccolo, Advisor to the Director, DG NEAR, European Commission
- Madlen Serban, Director, European Training Foundation
- Conny Reuter, Secretary-General, SOLIDAR
- Grace Attard, Rapporteur for the report on the situation of women in the Euro-Mediterranean region
- Salim Salamah, Blogger and activist, Palestinian League for Human Rights – Syria.