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This last 60-year period of peace is the second time in its history that Europe has known a period as favourable to the development of its societies, the first being Pax Romana which lasted over two centuries. Today the EU, the Mediterranean's driving force, is prompting it to recreate a space for peace and freedom and it has been joined in this effort by many other countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean, as well as by the Balkans. This vast movement will require government involvement. However, globalization has given civil society a new role and if the Mediterranean Union is to be successful, it must be founded in part on the tourism economy, in much the same way as the Common Market goals were partly structured by the contribution from the steel and coal industries and their targets of full employment, GDP growth, training, etc.

Euro-Mediterranean partnership has led to more disappointment than satisfaction. One of the paradoxes of this cooperation effort is that the crucial sectors for the region which are fundamental in socio-economic, environmental and cultural stability have been insufficiently investigated. Tourism, the leading wealth creation activity in the Mediterranean, with a regular third of world arrivals each year, was one of the Cinderellas in the Barcelona process and development of the Mediterranean region in its entirety could be stimulated by cooperation focusing mainly on the strategic sectors of the region, of which tourism is one.

Given that tourism is now a global industry and that decisions are sometimes made very far from the destination countries and that the processes of choice and distribution are highly complicated, tourism actors must be allowed more participation in the building of a common Mediterranean space. This is the Mediterranean Travel Association's (META) main objective and it is appealing to tourism professionals from both the private and the public sector to join forces and form a « Mediterranean Tourism Union », concentrating on Mediterranean destinations downstream and outbound long-haul markets upstream.

META is organizing a number of meetings on these different subjects (conferences, workshops, congresses, symposiums, shared web site) between tourism professionals, different specialists and suppliers. It offers access to precise data covering short-term forecasts, both in terms of quality and quantity. It will facilitate the dissemination of information with the help of its media partners, and organizes forums which will group together investors, specialists in environmental protection high environmental quality (HEQ), with operators and financiers. It will also contribute in this way to the movement of unification which is emerging in the Mediterranean through the converging interests of the countries on its shores.

All EU member countries do not have the same involvement in the Mediterranean and a new mechanism has to be found to make it possible for the different countries of the region to work together on problems related to the region's new economies (agriculture, tourism, environment, education and training). The newly-elected French president's proposal for a Mediterranean Union may not be conceivable in the short term but, apart from the fact that it deserves praise for having been expressed in a complex regional political context, it holds new prospects for action for the region's governments. Of course, this must include all the Mediterranean countries of the EU and convince the southern partners of the sincerity and historical scope of this ambition. And lastly, on condition that some sectors of cooperation are emphasized, among them the tourist industry, undeniably the Mediterranean's driving force on the international scene. To play a major role, all France would need to do as the world's leading tourist country is invest what may well be an abandoned field of action.