EUMEDIS - Background

EUMEDIS Focal Point For Palestine

Background

The Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference of 27-28 November 1995 stressed in its economic chapter that the support for the development of the Mediterranean scientific and technological community, together with the upgrade and modernisation of local telecommunication infrastructure, are two pivotal elements for the success of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

Against this background, the Conference held in Rome from 30-31 May 1996 on the "Construction of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society: communication, education and training, research" provided an opportunity to officially mark the Union's engagement on the Barcelona principles and to begin an analysis of the concrete measures to be taken for the Mediterranean Regional development in telecommunications and in the use of new information technologies in the industry, research and education.

In particular the Conference conclusions highlighted:

with regard to the telecommunications sector

“...the desirability of maintaining a constant and open dialogue (by promoting human resources development, by deepening the understanding of the strategic role of satellite applications in the region, and by promoting the organisation of fora and of network-supported activities among centres for telecommunication studies) between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries on the regulatory framework for telecommunications…”

with regard to the development of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society : “...the importance to give credibility to the partnership through concrete initiatives between Euro-Mediterranean partners such as the extension of the European research networks to the Mediterranean countries or the use of the Internet as a common tool for the development of “pilot projects and thematic communities of interest...”.“...the need to put new technologies at the service of the development of human resources and encourage , through training action, the establishment of the Information Society “.y

The European Commission is convinced that, particularly at this moment, the information society may play a significant role in promoting regional economic exchanges and in contributing to local economic development. The Information Society can protect local cultures from alienation, promote awareness on the potential of ICT technologies and re-build "missing links" among specialised communities that share common interests.

During the last two years more than 1500 experts from the whole region (gathered through 12 thematic conferences and workshops organised not only in Europe, but also in Cyprus, Egypt, Malta, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey) have participated to the definition of an overall Action Plan on the development of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society.

On February 22^nd 1999 the European Commission approved a comprehensive regional MEDA initiative for development of the Euro-Mediterranean Information Society specifically designed to reduce the region's informational and technological gap vis-à-vis the neighbouring countries.

The name of this initiative is EUMEDIS (Euro-MEDiterranean Information Society). EUMEDIS is the largest project ever undertaken by the European Commission in the development of the global information society. The EUMEDIS initiative pursues and implements concretely the political message of the Communication on Information Society and Developing Countries and the final declaration of the Bonn Conference on Global Networks^.

The project is the result of the formal requests made by the Mediterranean Countries’ representatives to the European Commission during the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on the Construction of the Euro-Med Information Society held in Rome under Italian Presidency on 30^th -31^st May 1996. The project is also complementary to a regional telecommunications regulatory framework project launched at the beginning of this year by the Commission with a financial coverage of 2.5Meuro.

This page was last updated on 18/04/01 12:08:08 +0200