Algeria regrets the "political characteristic of the UPM secretariat

The Algerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mourad Medelci criticized the "political" and overfed by the secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean countries (UPM), after the decisions taken by the heads of diplomacy of the member countries in November in Marseilles.

•     In an interview Monday evening at the International Radio reported by the Algerian APS agency, Mr. Medelci said that the roles of the secretariat of the UPM were "generously distributed" during the meeting.
  
      "Instead of a technical secretariat and given the choice of countries, it was left with a political secretariat," he said, adding: "We went out with new ambitions in Marseilles which appeared extravagant".
  
      "Instead of a technical secretariat as decided at the Paris summit, which gave birth last July to the UPM, Marseilles meeting agreed on a" secretariat composed of seven General- Secretaries, noted the minister.
  
      Two of these posts have been allocated to the Palestinian Authority and Israel.
  
       Mr. Medelci also regretted that the General Secretary of the organization is not yet identified - a post to which Algeria is not a candidate "- while the Paris Declaration specificied that it would be operational by 1 January 2009.
  
      A ministerial consensus was reached in Marseille for the UPM headquarters in Barcelona and the Arab League is a full member as for a General-Secretariat for Israel.
    
     The UPM includes 27 EU countries and twelve southern Mediterranean partners: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Syria, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia, Turkey and Libya as an observer, and five states bordering the north of the Mediterranean: Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Monaco.
  
      
  Ennahar/ M. O.