18 January 2010 The Euromediterranean Free Trade area is scheduled to take off in 2010 according to the Euromediterranean Declaration of Barcelona. Euromed Ministers agreed last month [December 2009] that their overall objective remains the establishment of Euromed Free Trade Area at the horizon of 2010 though there have been little achievements.

The aim of the seminar was to provide an inside look of multilateral co-operation (notion and practice) in the four maritime basins (Mediterranean, Baltic, Black and Caspian). The discussions addressed the following topics:

• sub-regional conventions;
• management of borders and safety of the maritime space;
• sources of maritime pollution and
• maintaining biodiversity.

The International seminar on Political and Security cooperation in Europe’s four Sea Basins, organized by the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) took place in Rome on April 3rd and 4th and was the second event of the EU4SEAS project, supported by the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission.

The seminar aimed to assess the role and impact in the political and security fields of sub-regional actors and organizations in the four sea basins. Also, it evaluated whether the EU, as well as NATO and other international organizations reinforce security cooperation at the sub-regional level. In fact, while the EU has always been keen on promoting regional and sub-regional multilateralism, proposing itself as a sort of model of such kind of cooperation, its strategies and policies have not always been consistent with that aim.

The seminar brought together international experts, officials and practitioners (see programme below) and provided debates/discussions about defining security agendas in the four sea Basin (Mediterranean, Baltic, Black and Caspian Seas), cooperation between the sub-regional organizations on conflict resolution issues

International seminar on "The EU and sub-regional multilateralism", organized by CIDOB Foundation, took place in Barcelona on January 28th and 29th. It was the kick off event of EU4seas project. Jordi Vaquer, Project Coordinator and Director of CIDOB Foundation, introduced the research programme and methodology for the three-year project. Angela Liberatore, European Commission DG Research, congratulated the panellists and the audience for fruitful discussions. Pleased to see the actual start of a project. Starting with teams with eight different countries in EU and larger Europe, and with interdisciplinary expertise and capacity. She added that it was a success to see how the project took the idea from the start that research should be a dialogue with policy making and practitioners.  

EU4SEAS will address the topic of “multilateralism, the new external relations of the EU” in the broad analysis of what is the role of “Europe in the world”. She pointed out how important the Commission considers the open access of the results. The project will share its conclusions in a final Conference with the other two projects involved in multilateralism, EUGRASP and MERCURY. She stressed that the project may contribute to a better understanding the multilateralism as “one of options to have constructive relations with its partners” and find out the way to make it more effective.

Habib Ben-Yahia, general secretary of the Union of Arab Maghreb, a diplomatic with a vast experience in Foreign Affairs in Tunisia where he served as minister (1991-97, 1999-2004) stressed the importance of multilateralism to deal with world changes. He claimed for a more ambitious and in some way visionary thinking (“the Dreams Department”) in Diplomacy to overcome the conflicts and political obstacles for cooperation. He added that the normal way of relation, the bilateral dimension, cannot deal with crisis that should be dealt with collectivelly.

The open-up session was followed by a two-day intensive conference about the perspectives and future trends in multilateralism around Europe's four sea basins.