The EU foreign ministers weighed a plan Saturday to boost education, trade, economic integration and human rights programs across the Middle East and North Africa as part of an ambitious undertaking to craft a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area by 2010. At informal talks at a suburban chateau, the ministers reviewed a European Commission report calling for a major effort to liberalize trade in agriculture and services, regulatory convergence and investment in Israel and Arab nations in the Middle East and North Africa. "With only five years to go, action is needed to make a reality of that ambition," said the report written by EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner. Since 1995, the EU has poured more than ¤13 billion (US$17 billion) in development aid, grants and soft loans into its Euro-Mediterranean partnership to help shore up the Middle East peace process and forge a free trade zone. The EU partners are Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Mauritania, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. The EU's Executive Commission said the outreach to these nations must be intensified, proposing to open major new avenues of assistance.
