BOSNIAN PRESIDENT HARIS SILAJDZIC TO ATTEND MEDITERRANEAN SUMMIT IN FRANCE

SARAJEVO, Bosnia (May 30,2008) – The Ambassador of France to Bosnia Maryse Berniau delivered yesterday an invitation from the French President Nicolas Sarkozy to the Bosnian President Haris Silajdžić for participation in the First Summit of the Union for the Mediterranean that will be held on July 13, this year in Paris,France, as well as for participation in the celebration of July 14, the French National Holiday.

During the meeting, the Bosnian President Silajdzic and the French Ambassador Berniau agreed that the European-Mediterranean Dialogue, which has lasted for 13 years, is a good way for bringing peoples together as much as possible around concrete projects.

President Silajdžić thanked for the invitation and he gladly accepted to participate The Union for the Mediterraneanin the First Mediterranean Summit in Paris.

The Union for the Mediterranean (French: Union pour la Méditerranée)is a proposed community of European Union member states and countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea planned to be established in July 2008.

The Mediterranean Union would be a looser grouping than the EU. Sarkozy called on the Mediterranean people to "do the same thing, with the same goal and the same method" as the European Union, however he stated it would not be based on the EU model.

However when the project began to be scaled down in 2008, many proposals were dropped, such as a Mediterranean Investment Bank (modeled on its European counterpart) and a raft of agencies. Instead it would focus on more practical projects.

Under the original plans, members would form a regular council under a rotating presidency (similar to the current EU model) dealing with energy, security, immigration and trade.
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