The Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) has reiterated its commitment to the ongoing facilitation processes to relaunch and strengthen the economic scenario in the region, in order to secure a dignified future to all the citizens of the Mediterranean area.
Senator Marwan Alhmoud (Jordan), Vice-President of PAM 2nd Standing Committee, in his address to the 8th Euro-Med Ministerial Meeting on Industrial Cooperation Conference (Malta, 11-12 May 2011), entitled Cooperating and Investing towards a Sustainable Industry in the Euro-Mediterranean Region, also expressed the desire of the Assembly and of the PAM Panel on External Trade and Investments in the Mediterranean, to be closely associated to the working groups of the Euro-Med area dedicated to economic, financial and trade issues. “In order to ensure synergies in fostering stability and democracy in the Mediterranean through trade and investments, all possible channels, such as governments, parliaments and civil society, must be explored and fully involved”, Sen. Alhmoud said. The PAM delegation at the Meeting, led by Sen. Alhmoud, included Ms. Virginia Cram-Martos, Director of the Trade and Sustainable Land Management Division of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), and Ms Celine Cervi, Director for Assembly Affairs.
The meeting, organized by the Hungarian EU Presidency and the Union for the Mediterranean, was attended by a number of Ministers of Industry and Trade, including Croatia, Cyprus, France, Lebanon, Malta, Montenegro, Palestine and Tunisia, as well as major actors from the private economic sectors and civil society.
In his intervention, Sen. Alhmoud gave a general overview of PAM’s activities under the 2nd Standing Committee, and referred to the conclusions of the Second Operational Meeting of the Panel, held a few days earlier in Geneva. The PAM Panel high-level meeting was held at the invitation of the United Nations Trade and Productive Capacity Cluster and was attended by more than 100 participants, from 22 governmental and parliamentary delegations, 6 UN Organisations and Specialised Agencies, 8 International and Regional Organisations, including the World Bank, the WTO and ILO, as well as representatives from the academia, the private sector and NGOs.
“The current unstable political situation in some countries on the Southern shores of the Mediterranean, further motivates PAM to propose and act on long term projects, and to uphold, concurrently, all those initiatives that will prove to be not only necessary, but also crucial to the stability of the region” Sen. Alhmoud concluded.