Barcelona has become the "capital and driver of Mediterranean unity", according to the new Secretary General of the UpM, the Jordanian Ahmad Masadeh.
 
This new stage in Euro-Mediterranean relations is intended to achieve a more dynamic association of European Union countries and their Mediterranean partners.
 
The Union welcomed, from its beginning, the principles, values and goals set out 15 years ago in the Declaration of Barcelona: work together to make the Mediterranean a place of peace, development and human and cultural dialogue.
 
The six priority projects of the organisation are the depollution of the Mediterranean, maritime and overland highways, civil protection, alternative energies and producing a Mediterranean Solar Energy Plan, the creation of the Euro-Mediterranean University and the development of business in the region.
 
The Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Spain, France, Egypt and Jordan, the European Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy, Stefan Füle, the High Representative of the UN Alliance of Civilisations, Jorge Sampaio, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Moussa, the Catalonian President, José Montilla, and the Mayor of Barcelona, Jordi Hereu, attended Masadeh's official presentation.

The ceremony began by raising the 43 flags of the Member States outside the Pedralbes Palace in Barcelona, the physical headquarters of the UpM permanent Secretariat.

In a previous ceremony, the Spanish Minister for Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, expressed the need to find "pathways to coexistence" in the region and remarked that the Spanish Presidency of the European Union will work enthusiastically for the Union for the Mediterranean Summit on
7 and 8 June.