The ninth edition of the SHADE MED 2020 Conference - "Shared Awareness and De-confliction for the Mediterranean Sea" organized by the command of Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI located at the Operational Command of the Joint Forces Summit in Rome ended yesterday afternoon.
For two intense days of work, the conference - for the first time in virtual mode due to the restrictions due to Covid-19 - hosted high-level speakers to draw a picture of the complex situation that the enlarged Mediterranean is experiencing.
“Now is the time to avoid fragmentation and instability by working on cooperation. A new season is opening in which we must work tirelessly to resolve the differences still in progress. Everything that emerged from the interventions and from the working groups of these two days of Conference testifies once again to the great Mediterranean potential of this region between three continents, with an extraordinary wealth of stories and experiences that is our via blu e which represents our post-pandemic future ", Admiral Fabio Agostini, commander of operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI said in the closing notes of the event.
Lo Shade Med 2020 it was followed by about 250 connected guests from 30 countries with 50 organizations involved and hundreds of people who participated in seminars held by high profile speakers through the EUNAVFOR MED website and social network accounts.
The importance of this edition was testified by the numerous international authorities who took part in the work and gave their testimony: from Josep BORRELL, high representative for foreign affairs and security of the European Union, to Stephanie TURCO WILLIAMS, head UNSMIL mission and special representative of the UN Secretary General for Libya to General Claudio Graziano, President of the Military Committee of the European Union to Admiral Robert Peter Burke, commander of the NATO Command in Naples, by Ambassador José Antonio Sabadell, head of the EU delegation for Libya, to Ambassador Stefano Sannino, Deputy Secretary General for Economic and Global Issues EEAS and many others.
Lo Shade Med 2020 represented a unique opportunity to meet (albeit virtually), exchange good practices, information and experiences between the many and different actors involved: from the armed forces to the coast guards of the states bordering the Mediterranean, from international institutions such as the United Nations, NATO and the European Union passing through the maritime associations and NGOs to the representatives of the governments that are most interested in the Mediterranean question.
"The theme of this edition: Challenges for cooperation in the Mediterranean after the global pandemic has imposed an accurate reflection, never banal, on the work that awaits us", underlined Admiral Agostini in the virtual press conference set up on the sidelines of the forum.
As the historian and Mediterranean scholar Fernand Braudel said: our sea is a thousand things together. Not a landscape, a sea, a civilization, but a succession of each of them.
In this spirit, it is necessary to face the challenges connected to the Mediterranean basin that require shared and sustainable solutions that create change and opportunities for all peoples bordering the Mare Nostrum.
Among the objectives of the Conference, in addition to those of the IRINI mission, there is precisely that of working concretely to make the enlarged Mediterranean a stable, safe area, free from interference that aims to develop all the potential in place that has so far been absorbed or obscured by armed conflict and tensions.
The appointment for SHADE MED 2021 is set for next autumn to take stock of the results and good practices undertaken starting from this year's forum.
The 2020 edition of the ShadeMed in particular, it made use of financial support from Belgium and Greece.
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