A Mediterranean Marshall plan

Desalination could become a game changer, because its costs dramatically dropped

Immigrants and energy create chaos in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean region or contribute to its security? Israeli, Palestinian, Moroccan and Italian experts answered this question a few hours before Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu started his complicated coalition negotiation in a two-days symposium held in Rome on February 26-27 titled A New UE-US Marshall Plan for the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Area: Economic Development and Cooperation Policies. 

The choice of the Italian Foreign Ministry and International Cooperation (MAECI) to host the symposium was intentional, because the speakers wanted to ask Italy to deliver their renewed appeal for a new Marshall Plan in the area to the US and to the European Union, in particular the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini.
Mediterranean Perspectives, a research center set up in Jerusalem in 2000, developed through a number of preparatory meetings between experts the multidisciplinary project Identity and Mediterranean Development, co-funded by the MAECI, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Rome (FES), the University of Calabria, and co-sponsored by the Representation of the European Commission in Rome, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) and the Research Center Eurispes.
Already in March 2011 Italian, Israeli and Palestinian experts and Amb. Marc Otte, former Special Envoy of the European Union for the Middle East Peace Process, agreed at an international conference held at the Representation of the European Commission in Rome with that economic development in the area can contribute to limit radical religiously-inspired proselytism. 
Concretizer! This was the motto of Senator Lhou Lmarbouh, which inspired the whole symposium. The passionate appeal by the francophone Moroccan Chairman of the Panel on Economic, Social, Environmental Cooperation and Mediterranean Development at the PAM to focus on practical goals and realistic achievements, putting aside useless polemics and demagogic slogans, echoed in all participants’ ears.
The symposium speakers, prevalently from a Glocalist background, invoked this much needed extraordinary joint US-EU economic investment plan for the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean volatile and unstable region in the two conferences’ debate, devoted respectively to immigrants’ integration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The immigration issue was turned upside down at the first conference (February 26: Financial Inclusion, Immigration, Remittances and Economic Development). According to the speakers, fiscal inclusion policies convert Mediterranean and Middle Eastern legal immigrants from a source of instability to a necessary pillar for economic development both in Western countries and in their country of origin.
Following the introduction of the MAECI’s Deputy Director General for Development Cooperation, Fabio Cassese, speakers from the PAM, University of Calabria, Limes (Journal of Geopolitics), Center for Research and Studies Idos (Immigration Statistical Dossier), Sapienza University in Rome, Eurispes, Center for Studies on International Politics (CESPI), Bank of Italy (Survey on Market and Payments System), and Poste Italiane (International Money Transfer) agreed on the central role of the immigrants’ remittances for any future Marshall Plan aimed at an effective impact on strategic economic development.
Cassese, on behalf of Director General Giampaolo Cantini, stressed the ambitious goal of the project Identity and Mediterranean Development discussed at the conference: attracting financial, diplomatic and political EU-US support for the Mediterranean region, which for the International Cooperation at the Italian MAECI plays a key central geopolitical, economic and cultural role. 
After the so-called Arab Spring the Italian Cooperation has focused its activities, in coordination with the strategic plans of the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI), in three main directions: democratic transition, sustainable economic growth for the development of a solid entrepreneurs’ regional network, and social aid, particularly in the health and education sectors. 
Italian Cooperation, said Cassese, selected four areas: Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, also to optimize efficient aid strategies and complementary European division of work. In particular, most of the Italian Cooperation’s activities aim at the development of small-medium enterprises, rural agriculture, social health and cultural heritage (protecting historically rooted collective identities also as touristic resources), consolidation of democratic institutions and governance and, last but not least, the central topic of the February 26 conference: the immigration-development link.
    Heartland

A Mediterranean Marshall plan

Desalination could become a game changer, because its costs dramatically dropped

Immigrants and energy create chaos in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean region or contribute to its security? Israeli, Palestinian, Moroccan and Italian experts answered this question a few hours before Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu started his complicated coalition negotiation in a two-days symposium held in Rome on February 26-27 titled A New UE-US Marshall Plan for the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Area: Economic Development and Cooperation Policies. The choice of the Italian Foreign Ministry and International Cooperation (MAECI) to host the symposium was intentional, because the speakers wanted to ask Italy to deliver their renewed appeal for a new Marshall Plan in the area to the US and to the European Union, in particular the EU High Representative Federica Mogherini. Mediterranean Perspectives, a research center set up in Jerusalem in 2000, developed through a number of preparatory meetings between experts the multidisciplinary project Identity and Mediterranean Development, co-funded by the MAECI, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Rome (FES), the University of Calabria, and co-sponsored by the Representation of the European Commission in Rome, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM) and the Research Center Eurispes. Already in March 2011 Italian, Israeli and Palestinian experts and Amb. Marc Otte, former Special Envoy of the European Union for the Middle East Peace Process, agreed at an international conference held at the Representation of the European Commission in Rome with that economic development in the area can contribute to limit radical religiously-inspired proselytism. Concretizer! This was the motto of Senator Lhou Lmarbouh, which inspired the whole symposium. The passionate appeal by the francophone Moroccan Chairman of the Panel on Economic, Social, Environmental Cooperation and Mediterranean Development at the PAM to focus on practical goals and realistic achievements, putting aside useless polemics and demagogic slogans, echoed in all participants ears. The symposium speakers, prevalently from a Glocalist background, invoked this much needed extraordinary joint US-EU economic investment plan for the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean volatile and unstable region in the two conferences debate, devoted respectively to immigrants integration and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The immigration issue was turned upside down at the first conference (February 26: Financial Inclusion, Immigration, Remittances and Economic Development). According to the speakers, fiscal inclusion policies convert Mediterranean and Middle Eastern legal immigrants from a source of instability to a necessary pillar for economic development both in Western countries and in their country of origin. Following the introduction of the MAECIs Deputy Director General for Development Cooperation, Fabio Cassese, speakers from the PAM, University of Calabria, Limes (Journal of Geopolitics), Center for Research and Studies Idos (Immigration Statistical Dossier), Sapienza University in Rome, Eurispes, Center for Studies on International Politics (CESPI), Bank of Italy (Survey on Market and Payments System), and Poste Italiane (International Money Transfer) agreed on the central role of the immigrants remittances for any future Marshall Plan aimed at an effective impact on strategic economic development. Cassese, on behalf of Director General Giampaolo Cantini, stressed the ambitious goal of the project Identity and Mediterranean Development discussed at the conference: attracting financial, diplomatic and political EU-US support for the Mediterranean region, which for the International Cooperation at the Italian MAECI plays a key central geopolitical, economic and cultural role. After the so-called Arab Spring the Italian Cooperation has focused its activities, in coordination with the strategic plans of the European Neighborhood Instrument (ENI), in three main directions: democratic transition, sustainable economic growth for the development of a solid entrepreneurs regional network, and social aid, particularly in the health and education sectors. Italian Cooperation, said Cassese, selected four areas: Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, also to optimize efficient aid strategies and complementary European division of work. In particular, most of the Italian Cooperations activities aim at the development of small-medium enterprises, rural agriculture, social health and cultural heritage (protecting historically rooted collective identities also as touristic resources), consolidation of democratic institutions and governance and, last but not least, the central topic of the February 26 conference: the immigration-development link. Heartland