The Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (PA-UfM), formerly Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, consists of 280 members: 132 EU members (81 members of the 27 EU national parliaments, on the basis of equal representation of 3 members per EU national parliament and 51 members of the European Parliament), 8 members from the parliaments of the European Mediterranean partner countries (2 members for each of the delegations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Monaco, and Montenegro), 130 members of the parliaments of the ten founding Mediterranean partners, on the basis of equal representation, and 10 members from the Mauritanian Parliament.

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)'