The autonomous city of Melilla was the scene of the meeting of the Centre of strategic studies of the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM). The meeting was attended by the presence of the President of the Observatory of the UPM, Alain Juillet, and director of the assemblies of the Chambers of Commerce of France, Philippe Clerc, as well as other representatives of the same Observatory of the UPM, and universities such as the ‘King Juan Carlos’, ‘Fernando Pessoa’ or the Institute of Exterior (INCIPE) policy and strategic issues.
Similarly participated by Melilla different representatives of local social and economic sectors such as the President of the CEME, Margarita López Almendáriz, the first Vice-President of the Board of the Assembly of Melilla, Cristina Rivas, the Director of the Faculty of social sciences of the University of Granada in Melilla, Isabel Quesada, and the President of Fhimades and Melilla project turnJosé María López-Bueno.
Melilla thus became the third headquarters of a newly started project which aims to serve as a support and development to the no less new Union for the Mediterranean, through which Europe seeks a way to strengthen its southern region and level of relations with the North African countries. The meeting lasted more than three hours. It allowed to get to know some of the initial projects of this Observatory, aimed to propose solutions to the challenges of competitiveness that emerge for the South of Europe and, therefore, for the Mediterranean region, in this new globalized world, in which economic competition between the different geographical areas didn’t find references or historical precedent.
