The Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM), formerly Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, consists of 280 members: 132 EU members (83 members from the 28 EU national parliaments – three from each Parliament except for the UK that has two members – and 49 members from the European Parliament), 8 members from parliaments of the European Mediterranean partner countries (two for each delegation from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco and Montenegro), 130 members from the ten founding countries on the Southern and Eastern shores of the Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey), and 10 members from the Parliament of Mauritania.

The Assembly has five parliamentary committees which are responsible for monitoring the following aspects of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership:

• Committee on Political Affairs, Security, and Human Right
• Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs, Social Affairs and Education
• Committee on Improving Quality of Life, Exchanges between Civil Societies and Culture
• Committee on Women’s Rights in Euro-Mediterranean countries
• Committee on Energy, Environment, and Water.

The Assembly may set up working groups whose membership and powers will be determined by the Bureau.

The PA-UfM is a consultative institution. Its resolutions and recommendations focus on the partnership’s objectives and areas of cooperation and are not legally binding. At present, the PA-UfM is the main parliamentary dimension of the Union for the Mediterranean. It absorbed the Barcelona Process and was officially launched at the Summit of the Heads of State and Government of 43 countries held in Paris on 13 July 2008.

On 28 April 2010, the European Parliament adopted Motion 2009/2215(INI) on the Union for the Mediterranean, whereby, in its clause 37, ‘stresses that the purpose of the EMPA is to become the parliamentary assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean, which will guarantee its democratic legitimacy, and supports the proposal of the 6th plenary session of the EMPA held in Amman on 13 and 14 March 2010 and that the name of the EMPA should be changed to Parliamentary Assembly – Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM)’

Members of the Maltese Delegation participant to the PA-UfM meetings are attached to; the Committee on Political Affairs, Security, and Human Right; the Committee on Economic and Financial Affairs, Social Affairs and Education; the Committee on Improving Quality of Life, Exchanges between Civil Societies and Culture