The Union for the Mediterranean opens its Barcelona headquarters on 4 March, with a ceremony which will include the presentation of the organisation's first Secretary-General, the Jordanian Ahmad Masa’deh; the foreign ministers of Spain, France, Egypt and Jordan will be present at the ceremony, together with top ranking representatives from the Arab League, the European Commission and the Regional Government of Catalonia.

José Montilla, President of the Regional Government of Catalonia, will chair the official opening of the new headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean, housed in the emblematic Palacio de Pedralbes. The latter is famous for its gardens, some of which were designed by Antoni Gaudí, and for having been the Barcelona residence of the Spanish royal family.

Other dignitaries attending the event will include the ministers of foreign affairs of Spain, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Egypt, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, France, Bernard Kouchner and Jordan, Nasser Judeh, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, and the European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy, Stefan Füle.

Masa’deh, recently elected to the post by the 43 member states of the UfM, was previously Jordanian ambassador to Brussels and to the EU and NATO as well as Minister for the Reform of the Public Sector The 40 year old lawyer was educated in the USA and Britain before starting his professional career in London.

Recently, Spain's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Ángel Lossada, declared that the European Commission must step up its involvement with the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) and help finance projects planned between countries on both shores. The Secretary-General will be in charge of coordinating these projects.

"Union for the Mediterranean": Key initiatives to be launch or reinforced

• De-pollution of the Mediterranean
• Land Highways and Motorways of the Sea
• Civil Protection
• Alternative Energies: Mediterranean Solar Plan
• Higher Education and Research, Euro-Mediterranean University
• The Mediterranean Business Development Initiative