EUMEDIS on a timeline

The Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Conference of 27-28 November 1995 stressed in its economic chapter that the support for the development of the Mediterranean scientific and technological community, together with the upgrading and modernisation of local telecommunications infrastructure, are two pivotal elements for the success of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

In February 1999, the European Commission approved a comprehensive regional MEDA initiative for the development of the EUro-MEDiterranean Information Society (EUMEDIS) specifically designed to reduce the region?s informational and technological gap vis-à-vis the neighbouring countries.
EUMEDIS aims at developing regional applications with user communities in the largest number of Mediterranean Partners.
The Programme is also complementary to a regional telecommunications regulatory framework project New Approaches to Telecom Policy launched around the same time.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) can play an important role in this process: today they form not only an essential feature of a competitive economy, but also an indispensable ingredient of any modern society. The EUro MEDiterranean Information Society (EUMEDIS) initiative, launched in mid 1999 with a total budget of 65 million euros, is a pilot demonstration of the concrete advantages ICT can offer in priority sectors of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership.

The call for proposals for the EUMEDIS initiative was published in the Official Journal on 25 May 2000 and closed on 22 January 2001.
Over 160 proposals were received of which 45 were addressed to education. The rest were split evenly across the other sectors.
Over 24 countries participated including all 12 of the Mediterranean Partner countries.
Twenty Pilot Projects received favourable assessment following their evaluation and subsequent contracts were signed with the EC.

Twenty Pilot Projects have been accepted to receive the EU support and have been active since either 2001 or 2002.