Tunisian Foreign Minister calls for "new synergy" to bolster OSCE's Mediterranean Partnership

VIENNA, 27 March 2003 - The long-standing dialogue between the OSCE and its Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation requires fresh impetus adapted to the nature of the challenges facing the region, the Tunisian Foreign Minister, Habib Ben Yahia, told the Permanent Council today.

Speaking at the plenary session of the 55-nation's regular negotiating body, the Minister recalled that the concept of interdependence between security in the OSCE region and the southern Mediterranean shore could be traced back to the Charter of Paris (1990) and even further to the Helsinki Final Act (1975).

"Tunisia, conscious of this interdependence, was the first country on the south shore of the Mediterranean to express its wish, in Vienna in 1995, to adhere to the values and aspirations of the OSCE for security, stability and a strengthening of relations between [the Organization] and the south shore of the Mediterranean", he said.

"We are still of the opinion", the Minister added, " that the Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation should be more involved - rather than merely concerned - with the elaboration of the new European security policy, which borders their geopolitical space."

Among the new problems and challenges, Minister Ben Yahia instanced:

• militarization of the frontiers and the policies of "containment" of immigration
• economic disparities and insecurity in all it its forms, particularly social and political, which engenders even greater inequalities and injustices
• increased co-operation between transnational criminal organizations in trafficking, (implicated in) the financing of terrorism.

All these things, he said, because of their inseparable geographical nature, require a collective, global approach which means the review of these perceptions and the deepening of solidarity related to these challenges.

"In this regard, Tunisia repeats its call for a new approach related to security, based on the geo-strategic indivisibility and the globality of this [issue]", the Minister added.

The security of the Mediterranean, he said, depended above all on a close, solid and equal relationship between the countries on both shores. Among other points he stressed the integration of the problem of development of the south shore with the European security approach and a political dialogue which might give rise to a Stability and Security Pact.

The OSCE has six Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Tunisia.