AER hosted its September Breakfast Briefing at the House of Croatian Regions, on 23 September 2008. 28 regional representatives participated in the interactive breakfast to discuss the issue of the Union for the Mediterranean. Speakers were Mr. Andres Bassosls Soldevila from DG RELEX of the European Commission and Mrs. Raja Rabia from the Permanent Representation of France. 

Mrs. Rabia gave a detailed overview of the Summit of Paris which launched the Union for the Mediterranean as an extension of the Barcelona Process. She underlined the specificities of the initiative including the fact that two countries involved include Syria and Israel and that the presidency is shared between an EU member state (France for now) and a third country (Egypt for 2 years). Mrs. Rabia listed the numerous topics of cooperation envisaged and highlighted the regional perspective and ambition to be concrete and have an impact on the citizens. The speaker concluded by stating that the Union does not have the ambition to result in a political integration of the participating countries or to create competition with the EU.

Mr. Bassols, in agreement with Ms. Rabia, further detailed some of the practical elements of the Union. He mentioned the three institutions to be created (co-presidency, secretariat, joint permanent committee based in Brussels). He also underlined extensively that the union would integrate a number of actors, including civil society, local and regional authorities and the private sector.

Mr. Filippe Terruso, from the Cabinet of the President of the COR, took the floor to underline the initiative of the COR to create the "Euro Mediterranean regional and local assembly" a consultative body composed of an equal number of regional and locally elected representatives from EU states and EU neighbourhood countries of the Mediterranean. He insisted that the regional dimension is central in this issue as regions have an interest and are directly implicated in the policies at hand.

Participants asked questions on how regions would be concretely involved in the process, how the presidency would rotate and how the Union would be financed. The speakers responded that projects would be developed and implemented by the regions; the presidency (on the EU-side) would develop according to the current treaty and funding would be partly covered by the private sector.

Jascha Scheele took the floor to close the discussion by giving an overview of the AER position on the Union for the Mediterranean. He also mentioned some of the key projects developed in Committee 3 in international relations, including the cooperation with UNDP.