The 2015 edition of the Conference of OSCE countries and the six Mediterranean partners (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel and Jordan) is being hosted by Jordan on 20 and 21 October in Sweimeh on the banks of the Dead Sea. The conference is dedicated to the theme “Common Security in the Mediterranean region – challenges and opportunities”.
The event is being co-chaired by German Foreign Minister Steinmeier, as President of the OSCE Mediterranean Group, his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh and Serbian Deputy Foreign Minister Roksanda Ninčić, representing the OSCE duty presidency.
OSCE and Multilateral Cooperation in the Mediterranean
Cooperation between OSCE and the countries of the southern shores of the Mediterranean dates back to 1995, when five countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Morocco and Tunisia) were assigned the status of “OSCE Partner for Cooperation”, which was extended to include Jordan in 1998.
During a Ministerial Council meeting in December 2011, the OSCE countries underscored the need to enhance the potential of OSCE’s Mediterranean Partnership with the adoption of a specific decision. Within the framework of the results of that decision, Italy hosted the OSCE Mediterranean Conference (Rome, October 2012) and later proposed and obtained the creation of an “OSCE-MED Focal Point” at the OSCE Secretariat.
