The Catalonia Europe Foundation held its 2025 Annual Conference, coinciding with the thirty years of the impetus for the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue that emerged in Barcelona. The event emphasized the role of cities in Mediterranean governance and the challenges shared between the two shores.
The director of the Foundation, Dolors Camats, opened the session by recalling that the FCE works as a meeting space for the European debate and to update the legacy of Pasqual Maragall. She reviewed the main lines of activity for the year and contextualized the conference within the framework of the 30th anniversary of the Barcelona Declaration.
The presentation of the Pasqual Maragall Legacy Awards 2025 was held in this same space, which recognize academic works linked to Maragall's areas of research and thought. The winners were Flora Ibáñez de León, Mikel Berra Sandin and Albert Santasusagna Riu, in the categories of Degree, Master and PM Legacy, respectively.
Dialogue: cities, cooperation and Mediterranean future
Historian and 2020 Pasqual Maragall Legacy Prize winner Òscar Monterde offered an analysis of the thirty years that have passed since the Barcelona Declaration. He contextualized that moment and reviewed the main elements that have conditioned the development of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership: political evolution, inequalities, the situation in Palestine, climate change and the transformation of the role of cities on the international scene.
Subsequently, journalist Cristina Mas moderated the central dialogue of the day, with the participation of Mustafa Hijazi, mayor of Saïda; Clare Hart, president of MedCities; Neila Akrimi-Kemperman, director of CILG-VNGi; and Maria Eugènia Gay, deputy mayor of Barcelona.
Mustafa Hijazi explained the situation of the cities of Lebanon and the need to strengthen international collaboration and the role of social organizations in highly complex environments.
Clare Hart highlighted the work of the Mediterranean city networks and stressed that migration continues to be a central element of the Mediterranean debate and an area where cities act on the front lines.
Neila Akrimi-Kemperman highlighted the validity of the project initiated in 1995 and defended the need to incorporate local governments in all phases of the design and implementation of Mediterranean policies.
For her part, Maria Eugènia Gay insisted that the new EU pact with the Mediterranean should explicitly incorporate the municipal contribution, especially in matters such as reception, housing, mobility and social policies.
