Benefits of EU's new Mediterranean agenda "must reach beyond capitals"

​Recommendations by local and regional politicians highlight concerns about access to COVID vaccines and "huge" regional inequalities within Mediterranean countries.

The European Union's new agenda for its partnership with its southern neighbours has won the support of local and regional politicians from across the Mediterranean region and the EU – but they have insisted that that the "cooperation benefits must reach beyond the capitals" and must reduce, not increase, the "existing huge territorial disparities within neighbouring countries".

In recommendations adopted on 22 February in an online plenary session, the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) also drew particular attention to concerns about "the risk of a vaccination-divide and urges political actors to facilitate fair and equitable access for health".

ARLEM was established by the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) in 2010 to bring a local and regional perspective into the work of the Union for the Mediterranean , created in 2008, and of the EU. ARLEM's plenary meeting on 22 February was addressed by both the secretary-general of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement.

Mohamed Boudra , Mayor of Al Hoceima and President of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG), who co-chaired the meeting, said: "The European Union has confirmed its ambition to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050 through the Green Deal project, to which local and regional authorities will make an indispensable contribution. The same ambitions and decentralised approach must dictate our thinking and our climate action in the Mediterranean. The COVID-19 crisis demands a double transition, a greener and more sustainable transition. We need to build forward."