French President Emanuel Macron has vowed to drive forward projects suggested by civil society members from the north and southern shores of the Western Mediterranean, the result of an initiative he first put forward in January 2018.

A number of projects proposed by Maltese civil society members are among the 14 major ones which were eventually chosen from a list of 270 following a three-month-long process.

The projects were submitted by delegations of 10 people, each chosen by the governments of the 10 countries on the north and southern shores of the Western Mediterranean – Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Libya, Tunisia, Malta, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain – covering five different categories, ranging from culture to youth and the environment.

Each category was tackled at a different forum – that for youth, education and mobility was hosted in Malta in April – with the 60 shortlisted projects scrutinised further in Tunis a few weeks ago.

The final stage of the process was held in Marseille on Monday in the presence of foreign ministers from the 10 countries, where it was given the seal of approval by Mr Macron.

The 'family' photo on the steps of the Pharo Palace in Marseilles.

Present for the event were representatives of supporting entities which will play a major role in the financing and implementation of the projects: the World Bank, the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the OECD, the European Commission and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The projects will focus primarily on creating a circular economy for food and their production, smart cities with an emphasis on medinas, energy with an emphasis on climate change, and youth empowerment.

One example is finding uses for waste from olive oil; another is using blockchain to help solar energy connections between producer and user, rather than routing all transactions through centralised distributors.

What set this initiative apart was its focus on civil society, as the head of the steering committee, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ouided Bouchamaoui, pointed out.

This point was also picked up by the head of the Maltese delegation, Ambassador Simone Borg, who told Mr Macron during a panel discussion that many politicians talked about empowering civil society but he had “walked the talk”.

Mr Macron said that his vision had been to recreate the joined history of the region, emphasising that the problems caused by migration stemmed from the inequality between the two shores and the way that Africa had been overtaken by the interests of “big countries”.

“It might take a lot of time to achieve but at the end it is all about dreams,” he told the audience, which included Foreign Minister Carmelo Abela and Ambassador to France Helga Mizzi.

In his intervention, Mr Abela called for the need to “seize this opportunity to open up space for youth-led initiative in the region, saying: “Youths are not the leaders of tomorrow but the leaders of today”.

Mr Macron plans to convene another submit in six months time in order to evaluate the progress made on the project, which should by then have been given more structure.

Details of the Maltese delegation are included in the pdf link below.