Malta will be hosting a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean later this month, when the office of its secretariat will be inaugurated by President Eddie French Adami, the assembly's secretary general, Sergio Piazzi, said yesterday.

The meeting will be held between November 22 and 24.

The assembly was set up in Nafplion, Greece, in 2005, on the initiative of the Maltese parliamentary delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

It brings together the littoral states of the Mediterranean in a forum of their own to examine questions of direct interest to the countries of the region. Dr Piazzi said Malta has been pushing the Mediterranean dimension since the mid-1970s when Dom Mintoff was Prime Minister. Other efforts to bring the Mediterranean countries together had been made since then, but the assembly was unique as it involved parliamentarians from all states, including Palestine, Jordan and Portugal, which do not have a coast on the Mediterranean but which have a Mediterranean dimension.

It also offers a framework for informal discussions between parliamentarians, civil society and the private sector.

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