Call for EU-Med bank
TUNIS (Reuters) – Parliamentarians from European and Mediterranean countries have recommended that a lending body that seeks to promote economic growth in the Mediterranean region be turned into a bank to help boost investment. The call to transform the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP) into a bank was made at a meeting in Tunisia of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA), a statement said. EMPA said turning FEMIP into a bank would strengthen the private sector and facilitate investment flows. FEMIP was created in October 2002 within the European Investment Bank (EIB), the EU’s financing institution, to boost economic growth and the private sector in the Mediterranean region, which it defined as Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Gaza – West Bank, Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Up to the end of 2005, FEMIP had granted -7.2 billion ($9.3 billion) in loans, a note on the European Commission website dated December 2006 said. Europe’s southern neighbors achieved economic growth of 4.8 percent in 2005, lagging the 7.2 percent expansion rate of emerging markets and developing countries as a whole. The EU has spent billions in loans and aid to nudge its southern neighbors to improve their investment climate, governance and infrastructure under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, also known as the Barcelona Process.
