The future of the Euro-Mediterannean security dialogue

VIII. EUROMARFOR and security cooperation in the Mediterranean
Admiral Francisco Rapallo 1
I would like to thank the Institute for the invitation to attend this meeting and for giving me the
opportunity to address you. At the same time, I would like to convey to you best wishes from my
three colleagues, the Commanders in Chief of the Fleets of France, Italy and Portugal, member
nations of the EUROMARFOR initiative. Let me begin with the main points about
EUROMARFOR.
VIII.1 Background
The history of EUROMARFOR begins in the WEU Ministerial Council of June 1992 that took
place in Petersberg. In that Council, the WEU member nations agreed in principle to identify
forces to be made available to WEU, in order to contribute to the development of the European
Security and Defence Identity (ESDI).
Following the Petersberg Declaration, four countries, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain
agreed with the idea of a maritime Force based in two concepts:
• Firstly, to provide WEU members with a basic multinational naval structure; and
• Secondly, to participate, in agreement with the Petersberg Declaration, in the development
of multinational initiatives for peace and security.
The idea of that concept was a reality in May 1995 at Lisbon with the signature of
EUROMARFOR Constitutive Document. Three months later, in October 1995, the Commander
in Chief of the Spanish Fleet was appointed as the first Commander of EUROMARFOR.
In my view, this is an appropriate moment to link the signature of EUROMARFOR
Constitutive Document and the Barcelona Conference, that took place the same year, in 1995,
because both events express a concern about the stability and security of the Mediterranean
region. In that sense, it is possible to say that the EUROMARFOR concept is in line with the
concept of the Barcelona Declaration. In this context, it is important to emphasise that
EUROMARFOR is, by statute, open to other WEU members, which can be fully integrated
without any difficulty, and has started a process of transparency-building with Mediterranean
partners.
VIII.2 Mission and tasks
Based on the Petersberg Declaration, the missions that can be assigned to the Force are the
following:
• humanitarian and evacuation operations,
• peace-keeping operations, and
1 Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish Fleet, Commander of EUROMARFOR, Rota, Spain.
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