A European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was developed in 2004, with the goal of avoiding
the emergence of new dividing lines between an enlarged EU (EU15->EU27) and new
neighbour countries and instead strengthening the prosperity, stability and security of all. The
idea of the ENP was taken revamped in 2008 by launching the Union for the Mediterranean
(UfM), a multilateral partnership between the 27 EU countries and 16 Mediterranean partner
countries from North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. The UfM (a.k.a. the Barcelona
Process) was launched after plans to create an autonomous Mediterranean Union, akin to the
EU, was dropped. Realization of common goals in terms of prosperity, stability and security
is influenced by demographic factors and pressures in both EU27 countries and 16 ENP
countries (Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Georgia, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon,
Libya, Moldova, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Tunisia and Ukraine).
Factors and pressures in these two regions are quite different though as ageing and slow
population growth characterise EU countries while young population structures and
population growth still characterize most populations in countries of North Africa and the
Middle East. However, as many ENP countries have almost completed the second phase of
the demographic transition of declining birth and death rates, the issue of ageing, including
health and economic implications, is becoming important.
This is the context of a multi-country project, funded under the EU 7th Framework Program,
called MEDPRO – Mediterranean Prospects. Since 2010, a consortium of 17 institutions
from EU and selected ENP neighbouring countries explores future challenges faced by 11
(MED11) countries in Mediterranean Basin (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya,
Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey1
) for the period 2010-
2050. The project explores and analyses future challenges in the following fields: (1)
geopolitics and governance, demography, health, ageing, (2) management of environment and
natural resources, (3) energy and climate change mitigation, (4) economic integration, trade
and investment; (5) financial services and capital markets; (6) human capital, social protection,
and inequality. In these key-fields, country-specific differences and common features are
identified and analysed, including linkages with ongoing and expected developments in EU
countries and the EC political arena, leading to the derivation of different scenarios of future
economic and political development for MED11 countries and the region as a whole.