Propose political channels to stabilise Libya, promote greater economic and financial integration, guarantee food safety in the region, and define policies addressed at youth and prevention of radicalisation. These issues are being debated by the around forty experts participating in the annual forum of the MedThink 5+5, a network of 31 think tanks from the different countries of the intergovernmental cooperation platform of the Western Mediterranean known as 5+5 Dialogue (Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Libya and Tunisia).
Organised by the IEMed, coordinator of the MedThink 5+5 network, the forum “The 5+5 Dialogue in an Evolving Region” aims to reflect on the channels to promote inclusive socioeconomic development to provide stability and progress in the Western Mediterranean. It is being held in Lisbon on 6 and 7 July in collaboration with the Instituto Portugês de Relaçôes Internacionais at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
The forum opened yesterday with the presentations of Augusto Santos Silva, Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs; Taïeb Baccouche, Secretary General of the Arab Maghreb Union; Ildefonso Castro, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation; Ali Mokrani, Director of Cooperation with the EU at the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and representative of the 5+5 Dialogue Presidency, and Jorge Borrego, Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Today the four thematic sessions of the forum are taking place with the contributions from around forty experts from different think tanks of the 10 countries of the Western Mediterranean.
The forum has included the presentation of the new network website, with information about its activities, publications and its member research. The website seeks to become a documentation centre of the 5+5 Dialogue activity.
The MedThink 5+5 network, created in 2016 and coordinated by the IEMed, fosters dialogue and research on the challenges facing the Western Mediterranean region with the collaboration of representatives from the government, academic and research fields as well as civil society.
It endeavours to contribute elements that can be useful when conceiving and making decisions in the framework of the 5+5 Dialogue, the informal regional forum of Western Mediterranean riparian countries.