{"id":900890,"date":"2026-04-17T15:19:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900890\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:19:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:19:20","slug":"new-mediterranean-university-heads-first-batch-of-projects-under-eu-pact-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/900890\/","title":{"rendered":"New Mediterranean University heads first batch of projects under EU pact \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

EU officials set out plans for the first 20 projects as part of the\u00a0bloc\u2019s\u00a0Pact for the Mediterranean<\/a>\u00a0on Friday (17 April), including a Mediterranean University with campuses across the region.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the flagship projects when the European Commission first\u00a0proposed the pact last October, the Mediterranean University has been\u00a0earmarked for\u00a0\u20ac11m from the EU budget.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commissioner Dubravka\u00a0Suica\u00a0said that the\u00a0programme\u00a0had been \u201cwelcomed\u00a0with enthusiasm\u201d by countries in the region. The action plan is a \u201cworking document\u201d and will be updated twice a year, she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The commission says that the pact will eventually deliver over 100 initiatives which will directly\u00a0benefit\u00a0citizens and businesses.\u00a0\u201cThis is just the beginning of our journey to a common Mediterranean space\u201d,\u00a0Suica\u00a0told reporters on Friday<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other early initiatives include plans for a\u00a0Youth Parliamentary Assembly, enabling young, elected European and southern Mediterranean representatives to gather in a structured platform and contribute to regional policies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The commission has proposed to\u00a0allocate\u00a0\u20ac42bn to the Mediterranean region in its next seven-year budget framework<\/a>\u00a0in order to\u00a0fund the various\u00a0initiatives\u00a0but details on how much of this is new funding are unclear.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At its heart is a\u00a0Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Initiative, which the EU Commission says will support the region\u2019s energy transition and renewable energy trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also among the early projects is\u00a0a European firefighting response unit based in Cyprus that will,\u00a0the commission says, support \u201cthe development of an all-hazards early warning system.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

That appears to be a reference to the spate of recent wildfires\u00a0in a number of\u00a0Mediterranean countries although there is little concrete detail on how it would work in practice.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Words not deeds?<\/p>\n

But the lack of clarity has led some to question the EU commission\u2019s level of commitment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pact is\u00a0\u201ctimely\u00a0but risks defaulting to short-term, piecemeal deals rather than the comprehensive partnerships Mediterranean countries require,\u201d\u00a0warned Tarek\u00a0Megerisi\u00a0of the European Council for Foreign Relations in a paper published on Thursday<\/a> (16 April).\u00a0<\/p>\n

Megerisi\u00a0added that the pact\u2019s \u201cmenu\u201d approach encourages governments to access individual EU\u00a0programmes\u00a0and\u00a0that the commission should instead offer \u201cinvestments, energy partnerships, visa\u00a0programmes\u00a0and infrastructure tailored to individual countries\u201d\u00a0if it wants to bring them closer to the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s main policy priority with North African countries in recent years has been migration control, with the commission brokering a series of multi-billion euro \u2018cash for migrant control\u2019 deals with the likes of Egypt, Lebanon,\u00a0Tunisia\u00a0and Mauritania.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The commission says that the Mediterranean Pact<\/a> will take a\u00a0\u201cwhole\u00a0of route approach to migration management\u201d which, it says,\u00a0\u201cwill enhance cooperation on preventing illegal migration, countering migrant smuggling and human trafficking, and scale up talent partnerships\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EU officials set out plans for the first 20 projects as part of the\u00a0bloc\u2019s\u00a0Pact for the Mediterranean\u00a0on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":900891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,221891,225611,248841,221889,248839,225609,221890,248840,225610],"class_list":["post-900890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier26","tag-identifier4403","tag-identifier4406","tag-nameafrica","tag-nameeu-politics","tag-namesociety","tag-termcodeafrica","tag-termcodeeu-politics","tag-termcodesociety"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116420724975125669","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=900890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/900890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/900891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=900890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=900890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=900890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}