ISDS Case Map
EMFTA
Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area
The European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council decision of 14 December 2011 to grant the European Commission a negotiation mandate to study and launch negotiations for Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreements (DCFTA) with Morocco, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt, which would extend current partial free trade areas in goods to incorporate services and public procurement and some regulatory harmonization with the EU, are part of the Union’s broader trade strategy.
The EuroMed meeting in Brussels today adopted a roadmap for the establishment of a free trade area around the Mediterranean starting in 2010. Support was also given for a regional convention with uniform rules on the origin of goods.
Foreign Ministers from all 43 states of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, known as the Barcelona Process, met in Marseille on Monday and Tuesday to endorse plans for the mandate, structure and institutional governance of the process. The initiative, launched at the Paris Summit in July, aims at injecting a renewed political momentum into the EU's relations with the Mediterranean states through the reinforcement of shared ownership and the achievement of wider visibility through a far-reaching program of projects.
The President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Poettering, discussed the future signature of a EU-Syria Association Agreement, during a meeting on Sunday in Damascus with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.
The European Union could sign a long-stalled partnership pact with Syria this year, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Sunday at the Paris launch of a new "Union for the Mediterranean"
EU trade ministers and their counterparts from 13 Mediterranean countries tried to find ways on Wednesday to boost commercial flows but experts said their aim of a free trade area by 2010 looked unattainable.
Monday's announcement for increased relations concerns three areas: diplomatic cooperation; Israel's participation in European plans and agencies; and an examination of possible Israeli integration into the European Single Market.
A new body should reinvigorate the proposal for a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010, a new European Commission document says.
European Union leaders agreed on Thursday to a watered-down version of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's grand design for a Mediterranean Union to boost ties with the bloc's southern neighbours.
The Middle East and North Africa are in the process of being divided into spheres of influence between the European Union and the United States. Essentially the division of the Middle East and North Africa are between Franco-German and Anglo-American interests. There is a unified stance within NATO in regards to this re-division.
