Speaker of Moroccan Parliament to co-chair first Euro-Mediterranean forum

Speaker of the Moroccan House of Representatives (the lower chamber of the parliament), Abdelouahed Radi, was elected this Tuesday morning to co-chair the constituent session of the first Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary forum.

A large Moroccan delegation, comprising, in addition to Radi, speaker of the Chamber of Advisors Mohamed Jalal Essaid and other representatives, is taking part in the forum that is bringing together legislators from the fifteen European Union member states and peers from 12 southern and eastern Mediterranean countries.

The Moroccan official will be representing the 12 southern and eastern Mediterranean countries to the forum, that will wind up on Wednesday.

For the first time, Libya is represented in a Euro-Mediterranean conference while Lebanon and Syria are absent. Delegates of the European Commission, the European Council and Committee for the Barcelona process, in addition to Israeli and Palestinian legislators and the secretary-general of the Inter-Arab Parliamentary Union, Noureddine Bouchkouj (Morocco), are present in addition to the vice president of the European Commission in charge of relations with south Mediterranean, Middle East and Near East countries, Manuel Marin, and acting chairman of the EU ministers council.

The goal of the forum is to give a parliamentary dimension to the Barcelona process and results of the debates will be transmitted by each delegation to its respective parliament and foreign minister.

The decision to set up the forum was made in March 1997 during a joint parliamentary meeting in Strasbourg.