This 2025 ARLEM will start a new mandate in a strategically new European institutional context with the appointment for the first time event of a Commissioner for the Mediterranean and the preparation of a New Pact for the Mediterranean as well as a Middle East Strategy.

In 2010, European associations of local and regional authorities active in Euro-Mediterranean cooperation participated in the establishment of ARLEM alongside the European Committee of the Regions. 15 years after its establishment, the ARLEM meeting was useful in revising the commitment of ARLEM.

In this context, and following the 15th ARLEM plenary session held last November 2024, the Secretariat of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly at the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

The meeting was useful for discussing the contribution of the European associations of active local and regional authorities (MedCities included) in Euro-Mediterranean cooperation to the ARLEM mandate. Also, a discussion about preparing the ARLEM report 2025 on Territorial Perspective for the Future Euro-MEditerranean Strategic Agenda was held.

From MedCities, the Secretary-General, Josep Canals, could participate online and share some important statements, talking on behalf of local authorities:

MedCities is convinced about the need to support local authorities as implementers as we are all already in the Decade of Action, part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.  We are concerned about the decentralisation or loss of political power of local councils in some states. We have agreed on this analysis with the CPMR. Canals stressed that multi-level collaboration is so necessary and that the Mediterranean association has already worked in that sense being a founder member of the Mediterranean Cooperation Alliance. MedCities has emphasized the need to work for an effective Mediterranean macro-regional strategy, approved by the Committee of the Regions (where ARMEL comes from) and by the European Parliament. Finally, MedCities Secretary General, Josep Canals, underlined the importance of sharing the same technical problems and seeking solutions among Mediterranean cities: “We are also strengthening political ties: local diplomacy, which is necessary for peace at a higher level.”

You can find the agenda of the session here.