SPAIN: Leaders from Europe and the Mediterranean gather in Barcelona for Euro-Mediterranean summit

Record ID: 858670

  • Title: SPAIN: Leaders from Europe and the Mediterranean gather in Barcelona for Euro-Mediterranean summit
  • Date: 28th November 2005
  • Summary: MERKEL MEETING ISRAELI DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER EHUD OLMERT VARIOUS OLMERT AND MERKEL PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD ABBAS WALKING INTO ROOM VARIOUS OF MERKEL MEETING ABBAS
  • Embargoed: 13th December 2005 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • City:
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics:
  • Reuters ID: LVADRCAX69PS6EACYPWNPH42OY6O
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: A low turnout of Arab leaders at the first Euro-Mediterranean summit on Sunday (November 27) highlighted the difficulties of strengthening the European Union's decade-old partnership with its southern neighbours.
    The EU called the ambitious summit hoping to revitalise ties with Near Eastern and North African neighbours and extend cooperation to fighting terrorism and illegal migration, as well as promoting economic and political reforms.
    But while nearly all 25 EU leaders attended, only two of the 10 Mediterranean partners, Turkey and the Palestinian Authority, sent their top leaders to the two-day conference.
    Before gathering for the first general working session on Sunday night, leaders held bilateral meetings at the summit venue. Palestinian President Mahnoud Abbas met Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, and was later scheduled to meet British Prime Minister Tony Blair. German Chancellor Angela Merkel met the Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and was later scheduled to hold separate meetings with Abbas and the Israeli finance minister, Ehud Olmert.
    At a joint news conference, Blair and Abbas spoke of the Palestinian peace process.
    "The two state solution, Israel confident about its own security, and then a viable independent Palestinian state. That's what people now want to see, obviously there are important milestones coming up over the next few months, elections both in the Palestinian Authority and in Israel as well. But that united wish on behalf of the international community is extremely strong, Blair said.
    "So we have now started to take steps like the one in Rafah, but these steps will be developed through the economic backup that will come either from the European Union or the (Middle East) quartet or from the Arab side so that we can improve the palestinian economic situation. On the other hand we know that security and controlling security is a very important issue and is our duty and is what we are working on so we can reach stability and prevent any events that could effect the peace process and our relationship both the domestic and the international," Abbas said.
    Merkel, still in her first week in office, held separate meetings with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan, Abbas and Olmert.
    The summit is set to reaffirm the incomplete goal of creating a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010, first set at the founding Barcelona conference in 1995. The EU has agreed to open talks on trade in agriculture and services next year after opening its markets to industrial goods from the south.
    The Europeans plan to maintain an annual 1 billion euros in grants and 2 billion in loans to the Mediterranean countries but plan to focus the aid more on states that make political and economic reforms through a new "governance facility".
    (POOR QUALITY PICTURE THROUGHOUT AWAITING BETTER VERSION)
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