Malta looks to Euro-Med. Free Trade Area for economic prosperity

Turkey's greater involvement in European affairs would add considerable weight to the Mediterranean component of the EU, Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami said yesterday.

Besides, an appropriately formulated reference to the historical contribution of Christianity to the European heritage would not create any stumbling block to Turkish accession into a Union based on the new constitution, Dr Fenech Adami added.

He was speaking at an international conference with the theme Europe and Its Neighbours held by the European Movement at the Foundation for International Studies, in Valletta.

The prime minister spoke of the need for more southern cohesion as well as a greater sense of pan-Mediterranean solidarity in order to move towards setting up the most effective forms of Euro-Mediterranean common structures.

Dr Fenech Adami spoke of the proposal to set up a Euro-Mediterranean Investment Bank, as a subsidiary of the European Investment Bank, which would be a stimulus to the development of small and medium enterprises.

Foreign Affairs Minister Joe Borg said the enlargement of the EU, the Barcelona Process and the EU's Wider Europe/New Neighbourhood initiative were three complementary exercises that together should gradually provide the Mediterranean with the chance to achieve the stability that has eluded it for too long.

Speaking about the EU's Wider Europe - New Neighbourhood policy, Dr Borg said this included several incentives to be offered to partner countries, including the extension of the internal market and regulatory structure and preferential trading relations.

Dr Borg said Malta was keen to become party to the association agreements its Mediterranean neighbours have concluded with the EU.

"We see the creation of the Euro-Med Free Trade Area as the first step towards the enhancement of economic prosperity and added stability in the region," he said.

"We will utilise this added opportunity provided by the New Neighbourhood policy to further our and the Union's interests in the region and to further the interests of the region within the EU, seizing each challenge posed by the volatility of the region as an opportunity to promote cooperation and dialogue."