“Mediterranean Foresight: Exploring Future Scenarios of Cooperation” was the theme of the EuroMeSCo 2024 Annual Conference, which took place at the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in Brussels on 16-17 May 2024. The event welcomed 140 participants from 27 countries, including representatives from think tanks, academic institutions, governments, civil society organisations, the private sector, officials from EU institutions and member states, and the Union for the Mediterranean, in view of discussing common regional challenges and contributing to policy shaping in the region. The world order has become increasingly complex, turbulent, and contested, facing the highest number of active conflicts since the end of World War II, with emerging actors gaining significance in the international arena. The Euro-Mediterranean region is not immune to these challenges. Longstanding conflicts have recently been joined by the escalation of the war in Gaza. Both the world and the Euro-Mediterranean region are entering a new phase of redesign in this world of radical uncertainty in which the scope and speed of change is exceptional. Ahead of political changes in Brussels with the European elections and a new Commission to be then assembled, the EuroMeSCo Annual Conference 2024 aimed to shed light on possible future scenarios of cooperation in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

The conference consisted of three plenary sessions on maritime security, migration cooperation, and economic interdependence respectively. The first plenary session focused on maritime security from the Gibraltar Strait to the Persian Gulf. The second plenary session discussed future scenarios of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation in the field of migration, highlighting the risks of a politicized approach and the benefits of a collaborative approach. The third plenary session focused on the future of economic interdependence in the Mediterranean.

The conference also hosted a Multistakeholders Platform on “Fostering Understanding: Communication, Perceptions and Narratives in Euro-Mediterranean Relations” and three parallel Foresight Working Sessions on the future of the Palestinian issue, new connectivity politics in the Eastern Mediterranean, and scenario building for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation after the elections in 2024 and 2025. The event was organised by the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) in the framework of the EuroMeSCo: Connecting the dots, a project co-funded by the European Commission’s DirectorateGeneral for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, Regional Programmes Neighbourhood South Unit (DG NEAR B2) and IEMed that aims to connect the dots between diverse stakeholders – think tanks, experts, civil society, the private sector, academia – as well as between the EU, its Southern Neighbours, and the wider region.