EuroMed Ministerial Conference on Trade
The 7th EuroMed Trade conference was held in Marseille on 2 July 2008. It was co-chaired by France, represented by Anne-Marie Idrac, Minister of State at the Ministry for the Economy, Industry and Employment, with responsibility for Foreign Trade, and by the European Commission, represented by Peter Mandelson, EU Commissioner for Trade.
The conference was attended by the trade ministers of the 27 countries of the European Union and 13 Mediterranean partners (Albania, Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey, along with Libya as observer).
This first ministerial meeting under the French Presidency of the European Union was part of the preparations for the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Union for the Mediterranean to be held in Paris on 13 July 2008.
In Marseille, ministers were able to take stock of economic integration in the area, review the advancement of ongoing trade negotiations (services and agriculture), and discuss the progress report from the European Commission on the forward-looking thinking launched at the last ministerial meeting (Lisbon, 2007) concerning the future of the Euromed Free Trade Area through to 2010 and beyond.
At France’s initiative, and in a first for such a conference, a session was open to six key speakers from the Euro-Mediterranean business world who shared their experience, their visions of the future for the Mediterranean and their expectations with the ministers.