The Futures Foundation

The Mediterranean Union was launched in July 2008, but greeted with a certain amount of scepticism after its aims were watered down.  Meanwhile, investment in the region is growing and so too are the ten MEDA country economies.

What is changing?

The meeting in July brought 43 countries together, the EU plus a further 16 from around the rim of the Mediterranean and the Baltic region, and breathed new life into the EU’s Barcelona process to encourage development in the Southern Mediterranean region.

The MEDA ten - Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Syria and Tunisia, Turkey,  the Palestinian Authority and Israel – account for about 4% of the world’s population.They have been attracting significant amounts of Foreign Direct Investment from a variety of sources, in particular other emerging nations whose investments are often more closely linked in with the local economy than Western approaches to investment and oil rich economies. Direct investment into Algeria and Morocco, for example has grown tenfold, in 5 years.  In total, MEDA inward investment is second only to China – just under $60 billion compared with $70 billion into China in 2006.