Regional Cooperation Neighbourhood South

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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