CIESM invited by SG4MED to present its Governance model at the European Parliament
On 3 March, following a kind invitation from SG4MED, CIESM Director General Laura Giuliano, addressed Members of the European Parliament. She presented CIESM’s governance structure and operational activities as a reference model contributing to the European Union’s current reflection on best practices for strengthening cooperation with Southern and Eastern Mediterranean partners under the EU Ocean Pact action.
Her intervention, titled “Acting with the Mediterranean, from within”, underlined a central point: as the European Union advances its ocean agenda under the Green Deal and deepens engagement with its Southern and Eastern neighbourhoods, a functioning infrastructure for multilateral scientific cooperation in the region already exists.
For more than a century, CIESM has operated as a depoliticised, science-based intergovernmental platform connecting researchers, institutions and governments across 23 Member States, EU and non-EU, on equal footing. Scientists are embedded in national institutions, expertise remains closely linked to coastal societies, and scientific findings inform policies addressing challenges that do not stop at borders: climate warming, biodiversity loss, coastal vulnerability and fisheries transformation.
As conveyed to Parliament, the opportunity within the EU Ocean Pact is not to create a new structure, but to connect strategically with a long-standing, operational and inclusive governance model that already strengthens cooperation across the Mediterranean basin.
