In the framework of the activities and the lobbying campaign around a macro-regional strategy for the Mediterranean, the members of the Mediterranean Cooperation Alliance, -MedCities is one of them-, and the CPMR Intermediterranean Commission with the support of the Government of Catalonia and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region, launched in Brussels the creation of a group of Friends of the Mediterranean Macro-Region.

MedCities, through the Secretary-General, Josep Canals, gave support to the initiative of the creation of the group and took the opportunity to exchange points of view and future projects with some of the association members.

The event aimed at boosting the Mediterranean macro-region project, an initiative that should provide greater cohesion and cooperation and more fluid governance between Mediterranean regions and actors in response to growing shared challenges.

The main objective is to gather efforts to make the Mediterranean Macro-Regional strategy a reality. For this, a dedicated roundtable gathering key representatives of European institutions and stakeholders from networks and regional/local authorities took place to outline the main arguments in support of this macro-regional strategy for the basin, going back to the latest reports elaborated in the framework of the EU Committee of Regions (2022) and the European Parliament under Rapporteur François Alfonsi upcoming in 2023).

As far as MedCities members are concerned, Mrs. Clare Hart, Vice-présidente of Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole and Municipal councilor of Montpellier was one of the speakers and she underlined the «need to have a vision of three shores and to count on people who represent the local authorities, emphasizing the young. A government instrument is needed to shape and ground the idea of ​​the macro-regional strategy. Also, we have to take into account that the 60% of the SDGs are local authorities’ responsibility and they need them to accomplish the objectives. But municipalities and its representatives need tools to make them a reality«.

Also we could hear the Catalan Minister for Foreign Action and European Union, Meritxell Serret talking about the macro regional strategy: «Mediterranean challenges are also European ones” and that, “we have to act together to tackle them properly and effectively”. Serret stressed the need for “more Euro-Mediterranean policies in the EU institutions” and for “strategic thinking in the Mediterranean basin«.

After the roundtable, the participants signed a short declaration consolidating their “friendship” towards the Mediterranean macro-regional strategy.

More about the Mediterranean Cooperation Alliance:

The Alliance for Mediterranean Cooperation was created in Barcelona in 2019. It represents a unique  network of networks working for  multi-level transnational governance, and has set itself the goal of establishing cooperation, between local and regional authorities and international entities. Its main aim is to ensure that local and territorial challenges are duly considered by global and Mediterranean policy-making actors on the one hand, while collaborating for global Agendas to land in a sound way on territories on the other hand.

The current members of the  MedCoopAlliance are the  CPMR Intermediterranean Commission, Pyrenees Mediterranean Euroregion, MedCities, Arco Latino, Adriatic Ionian Euroregion and Coppem.