The GTMO
The GTMO (5+5) -The Transport Group of the Western Mediterranean- aims to promote cooperation on transport in the Western Mediterranean and to contribute to the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. The members of GTMO are transport ministers from the ten countries in the region (Algeria, France, Italy, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Portugal, Spain and Tunisia) and the EC Directorate General for Energy and Transport, as observer status. CETMO holds the position of secretariat, providing technical support.
The GTMO is a group of cooperation on transport at the highest level that initiates his trajectory in 1995 in Paris, where the meeting of constitution of the group took place. Later 3 meetings of Ministers, one of high level officials and seven meetings of the group of experts who guarantee the planning and the follow-up of the works have been held. In the last Ministers’ meeting, in March 2007 in Tunis, a Protocol for the cooperation was adopted with the aim of consolidating it and institutionalizing it. Besides the Protocol, the Ministers approved the Conclusions in which the working plan of the GTMO is defined (5 +5) for the next two years (2007-2009).
GTMO activity is organised on the basis of the following priority areas for cooperation:
- Definition and development of a multimodal transport network in the Western Mediterranean, with special emphasis on links with Trans-European networks and networks in neighbouring countries.
- Search for advantageous infrastructure-financing modes from financing partners.
- Exchange and transport facilitation, with special emphasis on the transport chain as a whole.
- The implication in the application of the recommendations adopted in Marrakech during the first Euromediterranean Conference of Ministers on Transport.
- Upgrading transport-related companies, from the perspective of setting up the free-trade area
- Enhancing a database and methods allowing for regular identification of priorities in the Western Mediterranean, on the base of the works already carried out by CETMO.
- Development of research on transport in the region , through the implication of Euromediterranean university networks, and the promotion of the participation of the countries of the Magreb in the community programs of research.
- The identification of studies that allow the development of the transports in the region and the search of financing for its accomplishment.
- The reinforcement of the safety and the security of the transports in the region.
Among the activities carried out within the framework of the GTMO since 1995 one may mention:
- In the area of infrastructures and their financing:
- INFRAMED study.
- Seminar on financing transport infrastructure in the Mediterranean (October 1998).
- Round tables on traffic-forecasting methodologies for planning port and airport infrastructure (June 2000).
- Reflection on the bottlenecks of the airport infrastructures in the Magreb (2003)
- DESTIN project (2003-2005)
- In the area of transport facilitation:
- A seminar on facilitation of international transport of goods between the two shores of the Western Mediterranean (May 2001)
- REG-MED Thematic Network(2003-2004)
- International colloquia on Pre and post routing in the Mediterranean (2005)
- In the area of transport statistics and data:
- Assembling Project (1998-1999)
- Participation in the MED-TRANS project (1998-2003)
- CETMO databases and harmonization of the statistics
- Reports on the analysis of the Mediterranean flows of transports
- Coordination and participation in different projects of the R+D communitarian programme Inco-Med.
