•  Second, the Mediterranean region faces severe economic challenges. High unemployment, in some cases combined with poverty, is probably the most pressing one. While being rarely below 10% in any country, unemployment rates are above 20% in some countries, which also results in migratory pressures. A weakness in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) to the region is obvious.
Despite the geographical proximity, less than 2% of EU FDI goes to the Mediterranean region, compared with 4.4% in the 12 acceding and accession countries, 7.8% in South-East Asia, and 10% in Latin America. The extremely low level of intra-regional economic integration is also striking – on average only 5% of Mediterranean countries’ external trade is intra-regional trade.