EuroMed Days at EXPO Milano 2015 – a successful event launching a six-month process

The EuroMed Days on 6-7 May were early successes for the European Commission at EXPO 2015. Building on the Commission's industrial cooperation work with Mediterranean neighbour countries, the two days demonstrated the attractiveness of the proposed package, with a good mix of B2Bs, a conference, visits to the Expo and to local companies.

In all, 510 participants responded positively to invitations to attend the EuroMed Days from the partner organisations who worked with the Commission to organise the event. The vast majority of participants were entrepreneurs eager to find business partners around the Mediterranean.

Business-to-business meetings were immensely popular with 840 meetings scheduled over the two days. They took place after the conference on the morning of the first day where political authorities addressed an audience of more than 260 participants, advocating stronger Euro-Mediterranean economic integration - embedding it into a broader political agenda for more stability, less illegal migration and more cultural dialogue at the Euro-Mediterranean level.

The technical sessions that followed provided practical information on tools and processes supported by the Commission to help businesses operate at the Euro-Mediterranean and international level.

Approximately a quarter of the participants came from all Southern Mediterranean countries, with the largest delegation coming from Tunisia, followed closely by Algeria.

On the EU side, there were representatives from 20 EU countries. Some participants came from as far as Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa to attend the event.