The Pact for the Mediterranean

Higher Education, Skills and Research

Mediterranean University: New multi-campus higher education institution across the Common Mediterranean Space offering humanities, natural sciences, and technical science programmes, building on existing European University Alliances and Erasmus+ capacity-building actions, with joint curricula, joint degrees, student and staff exchanges, summer schools, and micro-credentials.

Mediterranean Innovation and Research Centres: Establishment and development of university-industry knowledge and technology transfer centres across the Mediterranean, bringing together universities, the private sector, innovators, startups, and investors.

Mediterranean Science Diplomacy Centre: New centre bridging science and policy, training diplomatic and technical staff in cross-border negotiation, joint project design, and evidence-based policy advice.

TVET Ecosystem Scale-Up: Mediterranean — Scaling up Technical and Vocational Education and Training ecosystems in southern Mediterranean partners by aligning vocational training with labour market needs in sectors of mutual interest, including agriculture, food processing, the digital sector, cultural industries, and tourism.

Youth Guarantee Adaptation: Mediterranean — Support for the development of Youth Guarantee schemes tailored to regional and local contexts in southern Mediterranean partner countries to secure employment pathways for young people.

MED Skill Tracker: New digital tool to document skills acquired by beneficiaries of EU and partner country projects, facilitating recognition and transferability of qualifications and supporting circular mobility and Talent Partnerships.

Culture, Sport and Tourism

Mediterranean Cultural Heritage Protection Mechanism: Dedicated pooling mechanism for public and private resources to protect and promote Mediterranean cultural heritage.

Mediterranean Cultural Pathways: New initiative reinforcing the shared cultural Mediterranean space through a network of heritage and cultural routes.

European Data Space for Cultural Heritage: Mediterranean Extension — Extension of the common European Data Space for Cultural Heritage to southern Mediterranean partners to advance digitisation and preservation of regional cultural assets.

CulturIT Digital Platform: New collaborative digital platform facilitating matchmaking of cultural activities across the Euro-Mediterranean region.

Youth Parliamentary Assembly for the Mediterranean: New representative body gathering youth voices and inputs across the Common Mediterranean Space.

Mediterranean Civic Service Platform: New digital platform connecting young people across the Mediterranean with volunteering opportunities in their own countries and throughout the region, building on existing volunteering initiatives.

Trade, Investment and SMEs

Sustainable Investment Facilitation Agreements: Mediterranean — Exploratory engagement with interested southern Mediterranean partners on new agreements to attract and facilitate foreign direct investment, including for digital and innovative economies and supply chain integration.

StartUp4Med: Regional startup and MSME support mechanism providing access to finance and investment mobilisation — combining European financial institutions, honour loans, crowdfunding, and blended finance — alongside an Open for Business programme for legal and regulatory simplification and a Policy Toolkit supporting MSME formalisation.

Digital and Data

Mediterranean Secure Digital Infrastructure Roll-Out: Support for the deployment of secure and trusted digital infrastructure in southern Mediterranean partners, including submarine cable connections (MEDUSA and Blue-Raman extensions with links to Gulf partners, IMEC, and T-MED), secure 5G networks, rural broadband, and data centres, financed through IFIs and EU and national financial institutions in line with the 5G Toolbox.

Mediterranean Telecom Capacity Building Programme: Regional programme for telecommunications capacity building, including exploration of appropriate telecom frameworks and cooperation on roaming among interested southern Mediterranean partners.

Mediterranean AI Ecosystem Acceleration: Initiative building on EU Digital Innovation Hubs and AI Factories to accelerate AI and data infrastructure deployment in southern Mediterranean partners and support universities, SMEs, industry, and startups in developing and applying AI across manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and climate sectors.

Mediterranean e-Governance and DPI Export: Sharing of EU expertise and open-source trust services, digital identity, and data-protection-compliant Digital Public Infrastructure solutions with southern Mediterranean partners to simplify cross-border government and business exchanges and facilitate citizens' mobility.

Energy and Clean Tech

Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy and Clean Tech Initiative (T-MED): Flagship initiative supporting trans-Mediterranean energy transition and clean-tech development through: a T-MED Investment Platform coordinating project pipelines in renewable energy generation, grid infrastructure, and clean-tech manufacturing; a dedicated regulatory reform mechanism linked to investment readiness; energy system modelling; a Technical Support Instrument one-stop portal; a certification and renewable energy trade support programme for cross-border Guarantees of Origin; boosting of industrial clean-tech partnerships across solar, wind, electrolysers, clean hydrogen, heating and cooling, grid, and storage; country-specific European energy and clean-tech business organisations; and a T-MED Skills Agenda addressing workforce and gender gaps in the energy transition.

Environment and Climate

Mediterranean Climate Adaptation Investment Pipelines: Support for national and local capacities to develop and implement climate adaptation investment projects, leveraging IFIs, climate funds, and private stakeholders.

Mediterranean Wastewater and Waste Management Plan: Regional plan facilitating investments in modern wastewater treatment and solid waste management infrastructure.

Mediterranean Water Resilience Partnerships: New partnerships strengthening cooperation on integrated water resource management, including water reuse, among EU and southern Mediterranean partners.

Green Forward Initiative Reinforcement: Strengthened initiative empowering SMEs to promote circular economy and resource efficiency, eliminate single-use plastics, support bioeconomy, and advance regulatory dialogue on circularity including for textiles.

Mediterranean Biodiversity Framework Implementation: Joint implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework, including National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans and the creation and management of marine protected areas.

Blue Economy

Mediterranean Blue Economy Community of Practice — New structured community of practice offering guidance based on data collection, data standards development, methodology, analysis, and research for the EU blue economy across the Mediterranean.

Mediterranean Fisheries Governance and IUU Capacity Building — New project to increase control and inspection capabilities of coastal states, enhancing regional fisheries governance and combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing through capacity building in monitoring, control, and surveillance.

'From Water to Market' Initiative — New initiative supporting producers, cooperatives, and associations in the aquatic sector in expanding production value, improving processing, and accessing new markets, including through access to finance.

Blue Mediterranean Mission Scale-Up — Scaled-up research and innovation programme providing solutions to restore Mediterranean Sea and water ecosystems and biodiversity, halt pollution, reduce ocean noise, and increase climate and water resilience and preparedness of coastal communities to extreme events.

Sustainable Transport

Mediterranean TEN-T Extension and Multimodal Connectivity: Expansion of multimodal transport links across the Mediterranean through improved interoperability, regulatory alignment, and technical assistance, progressing towards extension of the Trans-European Transport Network to southern Mediterranean countries, with links to IMEC, T-MED, and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Mediterranean Air Transport Agreements: Continued work on EU-level air transport agreements with southern Mediterranean partners and support for the single African aviation transport market, in line with environmental standards.

Mediterranean Urban and Rural Mobility Projects: Support for urban and rural mobility projects applying EU expertise and technology, implementing the TEN-T urban node concept, and promoting climate adaptation, sustainability, and liveability in rapidly expanding Mediterranean cities.

Statistics and Knowledge

Mediterranean Statistics Cooperation Mechanism: Strengthened cooperation with National Statistical Institutes of southern Mediterranean countries to develop relevant and comparable official statistics and data across all three pillars of the Pact, using new data sources, modern technologies, and AI for new statistical insights.

Cross-Border Legislative Impact Assessment Mechanism: Ad hoc mechanism to exchange information and assess the cross-border impacts of respective legislation between the EU and southern Mediterranean partners.

Peace and Security

EU-Med Peace and Security Forum — New regional forum providing an informal setting for joint situational awareness, coordination of peace and security approaches, peace mediation, and identification of capability support for southern Mediterranean partners.

CSDP Framework Participation Agreements — Mediterranean — Exploration of potential contributions by southern Mediterranean partners to CSDP missions and operations through new framework participation agreements.

Mediterranean FIMI Attribution and Open-Source Intelligence — Expansion of the Open-Source Intelligence Toolkit to detect and analyse identity-based disinformation-focused FIMI in the Mediterranean region, increasing situational awareness.

Mediterranean Submarine Cable Security Dialogue — Dedicated dialogue with southern Mediterranean partners on the security of submarine cables, in line with the EU Action Plan on Cable Security.

Mediterranean Violent Extremism Prevention — Enhanced exchanges and cooperation on prevention of violent extremism under the EU Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalisation framework.

Disaster Preparedness

Mediterranean All-Hazards Early Warning System: Support for a regional all-hazards early warning system building on the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, the 'Early Warnings for All' initiative, and the Union Civil Protection Mechanism's disaster resilience goals.

Mediterranean Food Security Preparedness: Support for food security crisis preparedness based on the model of the European Food Security Crisis Preparedness and Response Mechanism.

Mediterranean CBRN Synergies: Strengthened collaboration between the EU Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Risk Mitigation Centres of Excellence Initiative and southern Mediterranean partners, through training, simulations, and best practice exchange.

Mediterranean Firefighting Hub: Cyprus — New European Firefighting Hub based in Cyprus to support regional civil protection cooperation and capacity building.

Mediterranean AI for Disaster Management: Integration of AI algorithms into existing crisis management services and development of multi-hazard Decision Support Systems under the AI for Public Good umbrella to advance emergency response capabilities.

Migration

Whole-of-Route Mediterranean Migration Management Initiative: Comprehensive initiative strengthening joint migration management across Mediterranean routes through early warning systems, risk monitoring tools, contingency plans, voluntary return and reintegration programmes, readmission cooperation, anti-smuggling and anti-trafficking operational partnerships, and awareness campaigns on short-stay visa procedures.

Mediterranean Regional Protection Project: New regional protection project for vulnerable migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in the southern Mediterranean, promoting exchange of good practices on specific protection issues in line with international obligations.

EU Talent Pool: Mediterranean Launch — Launch of the EU Talent Pool facilitating links between EU employers and job seekers from southern Mediterranean partner countries, including through visa facilitation for students, skilled workers, researchers, and academics.

Border Management

Mediterranean Integrated Border Management Initiative: Targeted technical assistance and capacity building for institutional and operational border management in southern Mediterranean partners, including standard operating procedures, small- and medium-scale pilots, customs digitalisation, and cooperation through the EU Common Information Sharing Environment for the maritime domain.

Frontex Working Arrangements: Mediterranean — Support for the negotiation and implementation of working arrangements between Frontex and southern Mediterranean border management authorities.

Mediterranean Coast Guard Cooperation: Enhanced capacity building and skills development for border and coast guards in the Mediterranean through the Mediterranean Coastguards Functions Forum and EU-Southern Neighbourhood cooperation mechanisms.

Judicial and Law Enforcement

MED-OP Regional Internal Security Dialogue: New regional dialogue regularly convening senior security policy officials from the Common Mediterranean Space, modelled on the EU's COSI, to adopt and periodically update a roadmap for operational cooperation on serious and organised crime and terrorism.

MED-OP Operational Cooperation and Agency Working Arrangements: Support for the negotiation and implementation of international agreements and working arrangements between southern Mediterranean partners and Europol, CEPOL, Eurojust, and the European Public Prosecutor's Office, complemented by convergence support on justice and data protection reforms.