This appointment marks an important recognition for CEPLI. The participation in the Assembly will make it possible to bring the voice of intermediate local authorities of Confederation into a new forum for discussion, which not only will offer the opportunity to dialogue with all the representatives of the countries of the Mediterranean basin, but also will allow to join the path of construction of the new EU initiative Union for the Mediterranean.
ARLEM is in fact a joint assembly made up of representatives of regions and local authorities of the Member States of the European Union and of 16 Mediterranean partner countries, created in response to the request to put the role of regional and local authorities in the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership on an institutional footing. It therefore gives the partnership a territorial dimension and aims to involve local and regional authorities more closely in the specific projects of the Union for the Mediterranean.
President CASTIGLIONE will attend ARLEM assembly which will be held on 29 January. For the first time since its creation, ARLEM members will meet in plenary session in a country of the southern shore of the Mediterranean, Agadir (Morocco). The meeting will focus primarily on the adoption of three reports prepared in 2010 – the first on local water management, the second on urban development, and the third on the territorial dimension in the Union for the Mediterranean, which will be submitted to UfM and its General Secretariat. To prepare for 2011 deadlines, the ARLEM Bureau adopted a policy declaration last October highlighting its priorities to take forward the process of the Union for the Mediterranean. As a result of the work initiated in the spring and the previous meetings of its Bureau, ARLEM has obtained the status of permanent observer in the UfM.