Euro-Mediterranean region: call for a Council of Europe strategy

Recommendation 1919 (2010)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Assembly debate on 30 April 2010 (18th Sitting) (see Doc. 12108, report of the Political Affairs Committee, rapporteur: Mr Badré; Doc. 12135, opinion of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development, rapporteur: Mr Kumcuoğlu; and Doc. 12139, opinion of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs, rapporteur: Mrs Papadimitriou). Text adopted by the Assembly on 30 April 2010 (18th Sitting).

Thesaurus

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 1731 (2010) on the Euro-Mediterranean region: call for a Council of Europe strategy.

2. It reiterates how much importance it attaches to enhancing co-operation and exchanges with Mediterranean countries in order to promote the principles and values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, and hence to contribute to peace, security and stability in the region.

3. It notes that the European Union and all its member states, together with six other member states of the Council of Europe (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Monaco, Montenegro and Turkey), are members of the Union for the Mediterranean, which was set up in July 2008 to build with the partner countries on the southern shore of the Mediterranean a future of peace, democracy, sustainable development and prosperity based on human, social and cultural understanding.

4. It considers that the Council of Europe can make a significant contribution to the process of Euro-Mediterranean partnership in its fields of competence.

5. It therefore recommends that the Committee of Ministers consider, together with the European Union, which is the Council of Europe’s natural partner, the possibility and the practicalities of making such a contribution.

6. It also recommends that the Committee of Ministers consider:

6.1 inviting the European Union to join the European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity (North-South Centre);

6.2 promoting, in its contacts with the states of the Mediterranean Basin, their accession to the legal instruments of the Council of Europe;

6.3 the possibility of opening up certain Council of Europe conventions, particularly the European Cultural Convention (ETS No. 18), for signature by non-member states of the Council of Europe;

6.4 the opportunity to invite the states of the Mediterranean Basin to participate in certain activities of the Council of Europe which could present a common interest.