This report was prepared at the behest of the European Commission as a contribution to the Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial meeting on Gender Equality. The core perspective of this report is that the right of women is a fundamental aspect of the project to create an integrated Euro-Mediterranean region based on democracy, the rule of law and the protection of fundamental human rights as outlined in the Barcelona Declaration and reaffirmed in 2005. The report outlines the major priorities for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) as regards the rights of women and the participation of women in political reform processes, and makes recommendations on how to ensure that the rights of women become central features of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, so that women can become full participants in the project of transforming the Partnership into what the EuroMeSCo Barcelona Plus Report called a Euro-Mediterranean Community of Democratic States (CDS).

The report was co-ordinated by Álvaro de Vasconcelos, Director of the Instituto de Estudos Estratégicos e Internacionais (IEEI, Lisbon) and Abdalah Saaf, Director of the Centre d’Études et de Recherches en Sciences Sociales (CERSS, Rabat). The report was written by Alexandra Barahona de Brito, with the collaboration of Bárbara Direito at the IEEI.