MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT 

The European Union identified one of its main challenges in foreign policy as strengthening cooperation with its neighbours, and more specifically with those of the South and the Arab-Muslim world. In this overall framework, MEDEA Institute’s role appears clear. While closely following the process prompted in Barcelona in 1995, which is constantly evolving, our purpose is to develop in Brussels and in the Mediterranean, an environment of knowledge and understanding of the realities, ideas and culture of our southern neighbours.

The latest events pertaining to the region give rise to many prejudices, worries and questions, intensifying the crucial importance of our mission. MEDEA Institute seeks to offer an alternative to the dramatic information spread by the media, by providing in depth reflection and by strengthening links and exchanges based on trust and mutual respect.

Through its manifold action, the Institute contributes on the one hand to valorising the experts who cultivate this understanding, and on the other hand to diffusing progressively this deep knowledge for the benefit of the general public.

This mission is achievable by combining intellectual accuracy and objectivity. Concerned to foster stability in the Mediterranean region, MEDEA Institutes endeavours to:

• strengthen cooperation between two civilisations geographically so close whilst preserving and acknowledging their diversity.
• play a significant and sensible role in the dialogue between peoples and cultures
• encourage  reciprocal understanding and recognition. 
• provide an accessible forum for encounter and exchange of views between European researchers and officials and their counterparts on the other side of the Mediterranean.

This is why MEDEA Institute, which we hope will also become your Institute, is committed to embarking on a new path. A direction that will transform it into an objective contributor to the decision-making process, capable of making its voice heard and of serving as a base for initiatives emanating from civil society in opening the way for international organisations. These organisations will be able to call upon the Institute in order to know how their policies are perceived by those on the receiving end.

I invite you to demonstrate the value that you attach to our crucial mission through supporting our activities, and taking an active part in our shared project.

François-Xavier de Donnea
President
MEDEA Institute

• Foster inter-cultural dialogue.

Cultures are neither isolated nor static, but enter in constant interaction with each other and evolve. In order to make this evolution positive, MEDEA Institute aims at promoting inter-cultural dialogue between peoples and groups bearers of different histories, heritages and cultural codes, by encouraging encounter, by inviting debate, and by providing a framework for analysis which prevents acceptance of obscurantist and irrational explanations, or extremism. It is therefore an effort to offer information, clarification and analysis of problems, as well as critique, with a global goal to reinforce the foundation of mutual relations between diverse societies.

• Promote mutual understanding and reciprocal tolerance.

MEDEA Institute seeks to foster the respect of pluralism, in which cultural tolerance is not based solely on a passive acknowledgement of other groups’ rights, but implies an active knowledge of these cultures, thereby bringing about mutual respect and understanding.

• Establish links and networks for the benefit of players in the political, economic, academic and cultural spheres.

MEDEA Institute wishes to be a resource and a reference point for people wanting to engage in the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue. Via its meetings and talks the Institute seeks to create exchanges between political, economic, and diplomatic players, experts, journalists, academics and others, which allow the formation of operational contacts leading to concrete ulterior results and facilitate a better insight into the stakes, positions, and the tangible possibilities for cooperation.

• Disseminate objective and plural information to the public at large.

Via its website, publications, and conferences, MEDEA Institute works towards circulating objective information, as well as promoting education and training of Europeans and Arabs in order to prevent stereotypes revealing a lack of knowledge of the “Other”.

• Provide direct access to European and international institutions based in Brussels

Established in Brussels, MEDEA Institute wishes to offer its geographical advantage and assistance to other institutions based in the Arab or Mediterranean world wishing to have a base in the European capital.

The MEDEA Institute is an European research center whose primary purpose is to build relationships of trust, cooperation and mutual understanding between EU countries and their Mediterranean and Arabic neighbours.

Its work conists in developing a network of continuous dialogue between politicians, economists and academics, and in making available to the general public, information relating to relations that Europe has with its southern neighbours.

In practice, three types of activities are the specificity of the Institute's work. The first concerns the organization of different types of events such as:

• conferences to inform the general public on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab relations and on the news in Arab and Muslim countries;
• symposia and workshops that can be achieved in relatively small get-together and are intended to deepen a specific problem;
• informal meetings between different actors of the Mediterranean and Euro-Arab relations (officials, diplomats, businessmen, etc..) organized in order to increase the regularity of contacts and reduce the risk of misunderstandings and mutual incomprehension.

The second type of activities consists in providing information to the general public via the website of the Institute - including 1800 pages - and by writing articles published in periodicals outside the Institute.

The third type of activities lies in the consultancy service proposed in various forms:

• Interviews given to the media;
• Research and analyses conducted at the request of one third;
• Setting contact with different actors of the Mediterranean and Euro-Arab relations ;
• Put MEDEA's network of contacts at disposal to find experts and speakers.

Chairman: François-Xavier de Donnea, Ministre d'Etat (Belgique)
Secretary General: Charles Kleinermann 

Address : 24 Square de Meeus, 3rd floor, B-1000 Brussels
Tel.: ++-32 2 231 13 00
Fax: ++ 32 2 231 06 46
E-mail: secretariat@medeainstitute.org
Website: http://www.medeainstitute.org/