News

Ahmed and his wife Zozan fled the war in Syria and found safety in Türkiye ten years ago. They settled in the city of Adana, where their four children were born. Life in Adana was very difficult for Ahmed’s family at the beginning, where they initially lived in a tent which was not formally registered with local authorities. Thanks to an EU-funded humanitarian project, Ahmed and his family were able to tackle many challenges, including having their address legally recognised, which allowed them to access essential services.

“After the pandemic, our mental health was completely shattered,” says Selma, who is living in Gaziantep. According to the World Health Organization, refugees and migrants are more likely to experience common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. Additionally, refugees were especially hard hit by the devastating economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic. To respond to these challenges faced by female refugees in particular, an EU-funded project with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) organised online support sessions to reach women who could not access mental health services in person.

6-year-old Muhab and his family were forced to flee their home in Syria due to the ongoing conflict. His family’s biggest wish was for Muhab to go to school; however, due to a mistake on Muhab’s ID, which indicated that he was two years younger than his actual age, he couldn’t enrol at the local school. An EU-funded project, implemented by GOAL Türkiye, supported Muhab and supports refugees like him in accessing essential rights and services. Thanks to this assistance, Muhab was successfully enrolled to a kindergarten half-way into the school year.

Nacah and Ahmed live in Türkiye. They both fled the war in Syria with their families to find safety, but as many refugees in Türkiye, they are struggling to make ends meet: “Every month it is a challenge. Prices for food, fuel and health care are rocketing. More and more, we need to choose what to pay first,” explains Nacah. To pay the rent of their modest house, Nacah and her family can count on support through the EU-funded Emergency Social Safety Net (ESSN), which provides cash assistance to vulnerable refugees.

a

The 5th UfM Ministerial Meeting on Strengthening the Role of Women in Society was held on October 26th in Madrid.

EU DG-NEAR is joining forces with the International Budget Partnership (IBP) on an exciting new program in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to help build a framework for civil society organizations and the public to play a key role in the budget decisions that impact their daily lives.

Within the framework of the EBSOMED project, BUSINESSMED, in cooperation with the AIP Foundation organised the EU Med Roadshow “EU - Med - African Solutions for the Energy Transition” on 12 and 13 October 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal.

The 9th Ministerial Conference "Environment for Europe" organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe was held on October 6 and 7 in Nicosia, Cyprus.

The MED MSMEs Programme #TABADOOL #October monthly brief is now available.

On 13 October 2022, the MED MSMEs organized a hybrid #Tabadool dialogue at the EU Delegation in Tunisia to exchange on the impact on value chains of the upcoming obligation to disclose social and environmental data. 

The MED MSMEs Programme participated in the UFM conference in Cyprus on SME resilience on October 6 and 7, 2022.

The EuroMed Justice Programme supported the third Eurojust annual meeting on migrant smuggling, which took place on 19th and 20th October in The Hague.

The joint European Union – Council of Europe CyberSouth project, together with the Algerian Ministry of Justice, organised two judicial training courses for judges and prosecutors in Algiers, Algeria from 2-6 October 2022. The courses aimed at strengthening the knowledge and skills of criminal justice professionals to handle, use and present electronic evidence as well as to request and provide information on cybercrime and electronic evidence in relation to transnational cases.

On 11 and 12 October, EU4Youth Days, the flagship event of DG NEAR in the context of the European Year of Youth, took take place in Brussels in hybrid format. For the first time ever, the event, opened by Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Olivér Várhelyi, brought together young people, youth workers and practitioners, policy makers and researchers from the Eastern Partnership region, the Western Balkans, Türkiye, and the Southern Neighbourhood.

The Fifth Cairo Water week convene during the period of 16-19 October 2022. This main edition theme was “Water at the Heart of Climate Action” through five sub-themes overarching a broad spectrum of water for climate change adaptation and Mitigation.

The agreement will strengthen the support of the Central People's Bank to Moroccan Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in export value chains. The Programme will facilitate, via the Banque Centrale Populaire, SMEs' access to sustainable financing and new support mechanisms. This is the first agreement concluded under the European Union (EU) Trade and Competitiveness Programme, developed by the EIB and the EU.

On 18 October in Brussels, Jordi Curell, the EMPL Director in charge of Labour Mobility and International Affairs, opened the 13th Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) Regional Platform on Employment and Labour, with her Excellency Ms Raghda H. Al Faouri, Chief Executive Officer of the Technical and Vocational Skills Development Commission of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and Dr Abdelkader El Khissassi, UfM Deputy Secretary-General in charge of Economic Development and Employment.

The first large-scale regional simulation exercise, organised by the Council of Europe in partnership with the Government of Valletta on 23-29 October in Malta, represented a unique approach to improve the coordination, detection and referral of victims of trafficking on migration routes.

On 27-29 September 2022, a delegation of the League of Arab States (LAS) led by its Secretary General delegation, visited the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg as part of the cooperation aimed at the establishment of common legal space between Europe and the Southern Mediterranean region based on international and Council of Europe standards.