Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, 7th Euro-Mediterranean Civil Forum
Regional-European Union, Culture, 3/2/2002

1. Context and main features of the Forum
A conference of Euro-Mediterranean Foreign Ministers will be held in Valencia (Spain) in April 12th-13th, 2002.
After the launding of the partnership in Barcelona, civil society was involved in each of these official meetings, and the Declaration of Barcelona which explicitly refers to the role that should play the construction of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.
From this point of view, Civil Forums have become the main areas for multilateral encounters in the Euro-Mediterranean Association process. They played a major role as symbols of civil society, not only in terms of making political proposals but also as a result of its potential for co-ordination between political associations and production of joint agendas.
Taking into account the last six years of euro-Mediterranean Civil Forum, the conclusions that can be drawn up from this process are the following:
The Civil Forum process has evolved from a "complementary" and "subordinates" part of official summits - Barcelona, Malta, Naples- towards a new area of dialogue and political discussion - Stuttgart, Marseilles, Brussels. To a certain extent, both deal with different concepts about what civil society really represents and what its role is in the context of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
In spite of substantial efforts and repeated initiatives in this direction, there is not a permanent monitoring committee from one activity to other. As a result, it has been difficult to develop an incipient historical memory about the achievements and results of the Forums, especially in concerning the transfer this information from one organising committee to another.
The nascent Euro-Mediterranean civil networks have, mainly after the Stuttgart Forum, gradually gained political relevance in assembling people and organising the forums, although there are still problems of continuity between them.
Therefore, in the same spirit and objectives of continuity of the commitment of the civil society within the partnership and to re-launch the Civil Forum in the framework of the Barcelona Process, Spain will host during its Presidency a Civil Forum in Valencia, as continuation of the Civil Forums that they been held place since Barcelona, and especially since the Civil Forum in Stuggart, those that were held in April 1999, in Marseilles in November 2000, and in Brussels in October of 2001.

2. Main objectives of the Forum
2.1. The Civil Forum will bring together civil society from the two sides of the Mediterranean, and will focus its activities on the three axes of the Barcelona Process:
- Political and Security Co-operation
- Financial and economic Co-operation
- Co-operation in the human, cultural, and social areas.
These three axes will develop in thematic areas, which will work in workshops whose content will be summarized by a Steering Committee.
2.2. In order to ensure that the conclusions can be recognised during the ministerial Conference of April, the Civil Forum will take place in Valencia, on 12 and 13 April 2002.
3. Scope of the Forum
3.1. The Forum will be held in two one-day sessions comprising thematic workshops and plenary meetings. Previously, working groups will have been created which will work on a preliminary analysis of the situation, whose main topics will be formed by the issues discussed in the Forum, so that, in this way, this document may provide coherence and structure to the debate. Electronic tools and Internet resources will be employed for that purpose.
3.2. The Civil Forum of Valencia expects widespread participation from the representatives of civil society of both sides of the Mediterranean, and the level of participation is estimated at around 1200 persons.
4. Funding
The total provisional budget can be estimated between 400.000 Euros and 600.000 Euros according to the participation and the economic support provided by European Commission to the financing of the civil forum through the program MEDA programme.
5. Organization
The Committee will be responsible for the political agenda of the Civil Forum, the choice of the participants and the organisation of the programme. The Committee will be supported by extensive working groups depending on the themes chosen by the Committee. Simultaneously, the Civil Forum of Valencia will organise an office of Communication in charge of broadly publicising the ForumÕs activities and conclusions. The consolidation of the Civil Forum as a multilateral structure implies implementing of permanent networks of Euro-Mediterranean co-ordination, which can provide continuity to the forums. Therefore, the Committee and working groups will include mainly organisations with established networks of Euro-Mediterranean coordination.

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