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Written by Krisztina Binder.

The European Union (EU) has been pursuing cultural cooperation with its Mediterranean partners for decades, enhancing dialogue and understanding between people. The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), an intergovernmental organisation composed of the 27 EU Member States and 16 Mediterranean partner countries, recently launched the Mediterranean Capitals of Culture & Dialogue initiative to promote diversity and shared cultural identity in the Euro-Mediterranean region. Alexandria in Egypt and Tirana in Albania have been chosen to become the first Mediterranean Capitals of Culture and Dialogue, in 2025.

Introduction

The Euro-Mediterranean region boasts a rich and diverse cultural life and heritage, shaped by the coexistence of various cultures and traditions and millennia of cultural exchange. Culture has therefore been an area of cooperation between the EU and its partners in the Mediterranean region for many years. EU cultural cooperation in the region is guided by the significant role that culture plays in achieving sustainable human development. The Commission’s New European Agenda for Culture, adopted in 2018, identified culture as a vector for sustainable social and economic development and a factor in promoting peace, including through people-to-people contacts fostered by education and youth projects. Cultural co‑creation meanwhile serves as a valuable tool for communicating EU values, including artistic freedom and cultural rights.

In 2022, a conference of Euro-Mediterranean region culture ministers – the first such ministerial meeting of the EU-Southern Partnership – was held in Naples, following up on the first G20 meeting devoted to culture, held a year earlier. The protection of cultural heritage and the role of culture in sustainable development were among the topics discussed at the conference. Its outcomes paved the way for new EU programmes supporting cultural initiatives in the Mediterranean.

Cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region

Over the years, the network supporting Euro-Mediterranean relations has expanded. Several frameworks offer a structure for these relations and serve to promote cooperation in various areas, including culture.

The EU’s privileged partnership with the Mediterranean’s eastern and southern shores began in 1995, when the then 15 EU Member States and 12 Mediterranean partner countries launched the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, also known as the Barcelona process. The objective was to establish an area of peace, stability and shared prosperity, while promoting better understanding among people through social, cultural and human exchange. The partners recognised the pivotal role of culture in relations between countries and understood that dialogue between cultures and human exchanges could further strengthen their relations.

Since 2004, European Neighbourhood policy (ENP) has governed relations between the EU and 16 of its geographically closest eastern and southern neighbours. Under the 2015 revised ENP, a 2021 joint communication on a renewed partnership with the Southern Neighbourhood proposed a new agenda for the Mediterranean to relaunch and strengthen the strategic partnership with the 10 southern partners. This agenda guides the EU’s bilateral, regional and cross-regional cooperation under the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI). It also emphasises the need to foster inter‑religious and intercultural dialogues and enhance the capacity to combat the illegal trafficking of cultural heritage.

The 2021-2027 multiannual indicative programme for the Southern Neighbourhood outlines the strategic priorities for regional cooperation, noting that ‘The role of culture as a vector for peace, democracy and economic development will continue to be supported to help build a more inclusive Mediterranean. Culture is a field where there is a real added value in working at regional level to reduce social isolation and build connections across the Mediterranean region’.

The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) was launched in 2008, building on the Barcelona process and seeking to reinforce the partnership. Complementing EU bilateral and regional cooperation with the Southern Neighbourhood, the UfM is an intergovernmental organisation that gathers all the EU Member States and 16 Mediterranean partner countries. It promotes regional cooperation and dialogue through the implementation of projects and initiatives addressing the objectives of regional stability, human development and economic integration. The permanent UfM secretariat, located in Barcelona, works closely with other institutions – such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the UfM (PA-UfM) and the Euro‑Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly (ARLEM) – to pursue the Barcelona process objectives.

Examples of cultural cooperation

Since 1995, a wide range of initiatives, programmes and projects have been developed to promote the exchange of ideas and foster better mutual knowledge and understanding.

Under the Barcelona process, the implementation of the partnership’s cultural dimension included the Euromed Heritage programme, which aimed to highlight and safeguard the physical and non-material heritage of the Mediterranean. The evaluation of its first phase, launched in 1998, emphasised that the region’s common cultural heritage benefited dialogue and cultural understanding.

The Euromed Audiovisual programme, initiated in 2000, supported Euro-Mediterranean cooperation projects in radio, television and cinema.

The Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF), inaugurated in 2005, seeks to foster intercultural and civil society dialogue by bringing together civil society from across Europe and the Mediterranean to work on issues related to youth, media, values, religion, peace, co-existence and others.

To honour the cultural richness of the region, the UfM launched the Day of the Mediterranean – marked every year on 28 November – to foster a common Mediterranean identity, promote intercultural exchange and celebrate the region’s diversity.

Jointly coordinated with ALF and in partnership with ARLEM, the UfM has also recently launched the Mediterranean Capitals of Culture and Dialogue. The initiative is based on the 2022 Naples Declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean/EU Southern Partnership culture ministers, who called for the creation of a Capital of Mediterranean Culture modelled on the European Capitals of Culture. A recommendation to the same effect by over 200 young civil society representatives was presented at the 2022 Forum des mondes méditerranéens. The new initiative, under which a northern and a southern Mediterranean city will be selected each year, is designed to promote the region’s cultural diversity and foster better mutual understanding among its people. Following a call for applications, Alexandria and Tirana were chosen to be the first Mediterranean Capitals of Culture and Dialogue in 2025, with a year-long programme planned for each city. The deadline for local and regional authorities representing cities from the UfM region to submit their applications for the 2026 edition was early July 2024.

The UfM also identifies and supports cooperation projects that reinforce partnerships across the region. For instance, the Euromed University of Fes (UEMF) in Morocco and the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in Slovenia promote dialogue, mutual understanding and intercultural exchange. Within this context, fostering intercultural dialogue through educational, professional, cultural, and artistic exchange among young people in the Euro-Mediterranean region, in collaboration with ALF, is another of the UfM youth strategy‘s key actions.

Recently, a project to boost the cultural and creative industries and their contribution to economic growth and job creation was signed as part of a programme, the first in the context of the Morocco-EU partnership to support the cultural and creative industries in Morocco. Another initiative is CREACT4MED, a 4-year (2020- 2024) regional programme seeking to promote entrepreneurship and employment creation for youth and women by harnessing the cultural and creative industries in the Southern Neighbourhood.

In October 2021, the European Parliament’s Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) and Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) held a joint public hearing on ‘Culture in the EU’s external relations’.

Read this ‘at a glance’ note on ‘Euro-Mediterranean cultural cooperation‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

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