Union for the Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Transport
Brussels, 14 November, 2013
The first Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Transport took place in Marrakech in 2005, ten years after the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (Euro-Med), also known as the Barcelona process. On this occasion, the Ministers called for the intensification of cooperation within the Mediterranean region in the field of transport. In order to achieve this, a five-year Regional Transport Action Plan (RTAP) for the period 2007-2013 was produced.
After the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) was launched on 13 July 2008 at the Paris Summit as a continuation of the Euro-Med and the Secretariat of the UfM became operational in 2010, the second `Euro-Med’, and the first `Union for the Mediterranean` Ministerial Conference on Transport will be held on 14 November 2013 in Brussels.
The objective of this conference will be to follow up the progress made from the first Conference in Marrakech in December 2005. In this context, an evaluation report for the RTAP 2007-2013 as well as the priority guidelines for the RTAP 2014-2020 for the Mediterranean region will be presented at the Conference. These guidelines will contribute to the definition of the multimodal Trans-Mediterranean Transport Network, a strategic action in which the Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean will play an important role. A Ministerial Declaration will be approved and signed, as the final document of the Conference.
The Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean has actively participated in the preparatory work of the Conference since November 2012 together with the UfM co-presidencies, the European institutions (European External Action Service -EEAS- and European Commission -Directorates-General Mobility and Transport, DG MOVE, as well as EuropeAid Development and Cooperaton, DG DEVCO) – and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and contributed to the drafting of the Conference documents.
The next Union for the Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Transport is envisaged to be held in 2016, as stated in the draft Ministerial Declaration. The Secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean will continue to promote projects and provide further technical support to the UfM member countries in the field of transport.
