GEOPOLITICS

Geopolitics, dialogue, cooperation. Elaboration of in-depth, balanced analyses and scenarios; setting up of channels of dialogue in crisis areas, and commitment to fighting dehumanization processes; promotion of meetings and insight conferences; identification of policy strategies and development of projects for promoting cooperation between institutions, civil society and entrepreneurs.

The initial focus was on the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian conflict, as shown by the first three major international conferences, held between 1989 and 1993. After the Washington agreements in 1993, the focus shifted towards organizing closed-door seminars that could enable civil society exponents to meet each other acknowledging their common humanity and to deal with sensitive diplomatic issues linked to the bilateral and the regional negotiation process.

CIPMO has progressively widened its field of intervention in the wake of the radical changes taking place in the Middle East and the Mediterranean. The Center’s interests have therefore expanded towards the Mediterranean region and to the Greater Middle East, ending up comprising the African continent – in line with the new Europe-Mediterranean-Africa axis towards which our country’s foreign policy seems to have oriented itself.

Over these years, important international conferences and public informative conferences addressed the most relevant issues of the region, considered in all its crises as well as in its tremendous development and cooperation potential.

It is to this latter aspect, namely the need to see beyond the crises in order to solve them, that CIPMO has devoted its attention, with the aim of identifying new policies that promote interregional and Euro-Med-African cooperation, starting from the potential of natural resources (such as water and energy resources), technological innovation, the blue economy, cultural heritage, and tourism.