Rome, Italy, 8 July. The President of EMUNI, Joseph Mifsud was an invited guest to the official presentation of the latest publication by UNIMED, a key partner of EMUNI, on the state of the art of Transport services inside the Union for the Mediterranean. The presentation was made in a one day conference, attended by three hundred participants, academics, diplomats, and directors of public and private services from the Union for the Mediterranean, in which five EuroMed experts, some coming from EMUNI, discussed the different scenarios in Maritime and Land Highways. Prof. Menour Boughedaoui from Algeria, Charbel Salloum from Lebanon, Faisal Awadallah from Bir Zeit, Palestinian Authority, Mabrouk Hachemi from the University of Sousse and Rafat Edlebi from the University of Damascus together with Prof. Franco Rizzi described the political and economic frame work of this priority for the UfM and the various opportunities of universities and industry in the area.

Prof. Saki Aciman director of Cetmo, Spain spoke about the Mobility aspect in the Ufm and Menour Boughedaoui, from the University of Bilda in Algeria described the links between experts from the University sector to Maritime and Land highways. The conference was attended by a number of academic and regional experts on the issue. During the conference, President Mifsud also had the opportunity of discussing the participation of Algerian academics and University institutions with the Algerian Minister, Khaled Zohred Bouhlouane, who was present for the meeting. It was agreed that a formal request by EMUNI to the National contact points inside Algeria would be presented to define an EMUNI strategy for Algeria's active participation in the priority of the UfM. EMUNI, which is preparing a special issue of the Journal, will link up to the publication presented by Unimed and to the experts who have conducted this research on the principle of EMUNI synergy.