Launch Event: UfM Progress Report on Regional Integration

Read the report and discover its key conclusions

27 May 2021, online event, 10:00 (CET). The UfM, in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)  and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) is launching the first Progress Report on Regional Integration on 27 May 2021 in an online event.

The Report examines five domains of regional integration: trade integration, financial integration, infrastructure integration, movement of people, and research and higher education. It presents key findings and policy recommendations for each of these domains, based on specific performance indicators that can be monitored over time.

The event will hear from representatives of different regional integration processes, free trade areas and intergovernmental political and economic unions, as they share their experiences of promoting regional integration and showcase best practice and success stories that can be adapted and replicated in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

This event will be the first in a series of events dedicated by the UfM to regional integration, and the key recommendations will be used to inform future actions to accelerate and consolidate integration efforts in the UfM region across the five domains.

Final Agenda, 27 May

• 10:00: Welcoming remarks by UfM Secretary General
• 10:10: Opening remarks
• 10:30: Presentation of the UfM Progress Report on Regional Integration
• 10:45: Panel I: The UfM Progress Report on Regional Integration: Opportunities, Challenges and the Way Forward
• 11:30: Panel II: How to unlock the full potential for greater regional economic Integration? Regional Experiences from across the Globe
• 12:45 Wrap-up

You can download the final agenda here.

Background information

On 23 January 2017, the UfM Ministers of Foreign Affairs adopted the “UfM Roadmap for Action” aiming at strengthening the role of the UfM towards an enhanced regional cooperation and integration in the Mediterranean. The Roadmap established the creation of a Progress Report on Regional Integration that would monitor major trends and evolutions with specific performance indicators to assess progress achieved in regional integration during periods of five years. The UfM commissioned the OECD to prepare the first issue of the Progress Report, with the financial support of the GIZ  on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ).