Valencia welcomed the First Mediterranean Citizens’ Assembly.
For three whole days, people from 18 Mediterranean countries got together in Valencia.
The First Mediterranean Citizens’ Assembly took place in Valencia from July 2 to July 4, under the name of “Citizens’ dialogs: institutions and citizenship in the Mediterranean”. This initiative, coordinated by the ONG CERAI (Center for Rural Studies and International Agriculture), the International European Movement and the European University of Tirana, is sponsored by the Charles Leopold Mayer Foundation, the Mediterranean House and the Arabic House.
Some of the citizens who have been heard these days in Valencia are: Director of the Mediterranean House, Yolanda Parrado; Euro MP and member of the Euro Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (APEM), Andrés Perelló; Professor at the American University of Cairo and member of the Library of Alexandria, Iman el Kaffass, and advisor of the late Israeli Prime Minister, Isaac Rabin, and member of the Forum for Peace, Ofer Bronchtein. Among the participants there were citizens from various socio-professional backgrounds: economists, jurists, philosophers, politicians, feminist activists, university activists, business people and representatives of various social organizations. Euro Mediterranean institutions have been also widely represented.
The work axes to be tackled in this meeting have been:
- Thinking the Mediterranean space: What political institutional framework? Which Mediterranean institutional realities? Which visions of the Mediterranean do the countries taking part in the Euro Mediterranean process have?
- Mediterranean citizenship, rights and responsibilities: What is Mediterranean citizenship? Are there any instruments and policies to exercise citizenship? Is there a Mediterranean identity?
- Building a sustainable space for peace: Are there prior conditions for its development? What sort of citizens’ participation is necessary in order to be on the way to a community of Mediterranean peoples? Which Euro Mediterranean agreements are needed to contribute to eradicate socio-economic inequalities? How can we go past the blockages in the mentalities and practices of organizations which work for the Mediterranean?
- Mediterranean current and future challenges: Citizens’ individual and collective responsibility: How much environmental responsibility is needed by the citizens of the Mediterranean? What sort of education is necessary to face future challenges? Which territorial developments does the Mediterranean need? Which mobility policies are necessary in the area to respond to citizens’ demand?
This initiative is the result of the work by a group of Mediterranean citizens who, since 2008, have been committed to actively take part in the emergence of a Mediterranean community of peoples. This project stretches from the ascertainment that the Mediterranean region is a historical, human, commercial, cultural, social and environmental reality.
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According to its Letter of Constitution, the Mediterranean Citizens’ Assembly aims at:
- Contributing to the construction of a lasting space for peace, development, solidarity and prosperity, shared by all peoples.
- Participating in the emergence of new truly agreed upon and shared governance models in the Mediterranean.
- Favoring economic and political regional integration, thus allowing certain peoples to be free of their entrapment.
- Working to get over mutual fears and to provide a human, political, cultural, environmental and economic sense to the Mediterranean community of peoples.
- Contributing to dialog between societies.
the Mediterranean Citizens' Assembly
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