Malta hoping to host Med. Parliamentary Assembly secretariat

Malta is bidding to host the secretariat of the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, being set up next month at the final session of the Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean.

Nationalist MP Michael Gonzi told a meeting of the parliamentary Foreign and European Affairs Committee that since Malta was among the very first countries to have promoted the setting up of the assembly and it was a friend to all Mediterranean states, the secretariat should be based here.

Dr Gonzi is one of the Maltese parliament's representatives on the fourth inter-parliamentary Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (CSCM), which will be replaced by the new assembly.

He said that it was imperative that the committee helped the Foreign Minister and the Speaker of the House in their efforts to attract the new assembly's secretariat.

Dr Gonzi observed that the CSCM had been set up on Malta's initiative after it saw a need for the Mediterranean to have a forum where the problems of the region could be discussed.

A meeting of the CSCM in Athens next month is expected to finalise the assembly's statute, bringing the CSCM to an end and giving birth to the assembly. The inaugural sitting of the assembly is expected to be held later this year.

The assembly is to be of a consultative nature and its objective will be to strengthen political dialogue while promoting cooperation between members.

It is to have three sub-committees - on regional stability; economic and social cooperation; and dialogue among civilisations and human rights. All countries bordering the Mediterranean are to be members.

Alfred Zarb, a consultant at the Foreign Ministry, said that the assembly would bring all Mediterranean countries on an equal footing.

Replying to a question by committee chairman Jason Azzopardi as to the similarity between this assembly and the Euromed assembly, he said that while the Euromed Parliamentary Assembly was there to support the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean process, the Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly was more widely spread on the Mediterranean.

Foreign Minister Michael Frendo said that the difference between this and the EuroMed assembly was that this would be a strictly Mediterranean assembly focusing just on Mediterranean.

Earlier, the committee was given a presentation by officials from the US embassy regarding a forthcoming visit by the committee to the US in April.

The visit is being funded by the US government.