In order to fulfil its monitoring task with respect to the implementation of the trans-national axes in the Mediterranean, the Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum is invited to establish an additional thematic WG in 2007 to deal with infrastructures for all modes of transport, and with regulatory issues for land transport. The working group should consider multimodality, focusing on the main Mediterranean transport axes but taking the wider transport network into account. Furthermore, it should coordinate its work with other Forum working groups. The European Commission should provide organizational and financial support for the running of these working groups.
EuroMed Transport Fora
The Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum benefits considerably from the activities of several thematic Working Groups (WG) joining together experts in the fields of the `maritime transport', the `Global Navigation Stallite Systems' and the `air transport'.
These groups largely facilitated information exchange and discussion on the policies among the Mediterranean countries and the EU and will have also to play a key-role with regard to the monitoring of the RTAP and the implementation of regulatory reforms in their respective fields.
The Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum as the main platform for the discussion, monitoring and regular update of the RTAP shall deliver a mid-term review of the RTAP, by the end of 2009 and a final report by mid-2013. Given that the executive capacity of the Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum is limited, the European Commission - as secretariat of the Forum – should continue to provide the support required to prepare reports and updates.
[Action 32]
The Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum as the main platform for the discussion, monitoring and regular update of the RTAP shall deliver a mid-term review of the RTAP by the end of 2009 and a final review report by mid-2013. Given that the executive capacity of the Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum is limited, the European Commission – as secretariat of the Forum – should continue to provide the support required to prepare reports and updates.
[Action 33]
[Action 34]
The Commission is invited to consider the establishment and maintenance of a permanent secretariat on Mediterranean transport to support the operation of the Euro-Mediterranean Transport Forum through the systematic collection and analysis of relevant data and the supply of expertise (see also action 18). Such a secretariat should ideally comprise two programme areas dealing with Western and Eastern Mediterranean respectively, given the different opportunities and challenges and the variable development of institutional structures of regional cooperation in the two sub-regions. A feasibility plan on the establishment of such a permanent secretariat should be completed by the end of 2007 and take into account the experiences made by CETMO for the Western Mediterranean.