The Western Mediterranean is made up of five countries on the northern shore (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Malta) and five on the southern shore (Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya). An essential tool for materializing cooperation on transport in the region is the GTMO 5+5 (Group of Transport Ministers of the Western Mediterranean), of which CETMO is the permanent Technical Secretariat.

The Working Group’s most important event is the GTMO 5+5 Ministerial Conference, the latest of which was recently held in Nouakchott (Mauritania). It was attended by high-level representatives of all the ministries of the countries in the region.

The Ministerial Conference was preceded by a technical meeting of national experts from the ministries and included the transfer of the Working Group’s Presidency from Portugal to Mauritania.

Many highly relevant agreements on developing transport in the region were also reached at the conference. The most important agreements were the following:

• Collaboration with other organizations: to continue participating, as the GTMO 5+5, in the initiatives in progress within the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean, in close collaboration with its Secretariat and the different organizations that work in this context.
• GTMO 5+5 Multimodal Network: to maintain and increase infrastructure know-how for the GTMO 5+5 Multimodal Network and to intensify efforts to implement the core network.
• Studies and training: to continue with the study of how the transport system works in the region and to distribute the results in order to identify regional priorities and industry trends, and to promote training focused on spreading good practices among the countries.
• Road safety: to help improve road safety in the Western Mediterranean by raising awareness of the importance of improving infrastructure and collecting data on accidents and their causes in coordination and cooperation with other initiatives.
• Maritime transport: to work on promoting efficient, sustainable maritime connections as the main connection modality between the shores of the Mediterranean.
• Logistics: to promote the development of modern logistics as a tool for supporting and increasing the region’s economic competitiveness.
• Public transport: to work on improving public transport as a means of transport aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
• Funding: to explore the region’s funding opportunities for different kinds of transport projects and initiatives through participation of the private sector and international financial institutions.
• Sustainability: to promote environmental sustainability criteria in actions implemented by the group.

With regard to internal operations of the GTMO 5+5, it was agreed to continue strengthening cooperation in the Working Group’s activities with regular meetings of the group of national experts to implement the 2018-2020 work programme based on the conclusions of this conference with the aim of meeting again in 2020 to assess the application of the decisions adopted in Nouakchott and transfer the Presidency to Malta.

Of note among the acknowledgments made during the conference was the gratitude expressed to the Spanish Ministry of Fomento, the Catalan Ministry of Territory and Sustainability and CETMO for financing the activities of the GTMO 5+5 Technical Secretariat and their commitment to continuing making this contribution.