President Georgi Purvanov represented Bulgaria at the founding meeting on July 12 2008 of the Union for the Mediterranean, hosted in Paris by French president Nicolas Sakozy.

Bulgarian National Radio reported that at a forum presided over by Sarkozy and his Egyptian counterpart, Hosni Mubarak, the heads of state and government of 43 countries discussed co-operation in areas including economic and social development, climate change, energy, migration and dialogue among civilisations.

News agency Reuters reported that membership of the project is open to all states that border the Mediterranean, all members of the European Union, and some others. They represent a total of nearly a billion people.

The organisers said that the countries represented were Albania, Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Palestinian Authority, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.

The only national leaders who were invited but did not attend were Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, a vocal critic of the project and whose country did not send an envoy at all, and the kings of Jordan and Morocco, who both said they could not come for personal reasons.

The BBC reported that, in a declaration, the 43 nations - including Israel and Arab states - pledged to "pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction".

Sarkozy singled out as a "success" the fact that Israel's prime minister had sat at the same table as Syria's president. The two countries are still technically at war.

The stated aims of the Union for the Mediterranean include an ambition to build a  common future based on the full respect of democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms, determination to eradicate terrorism and to combat its sponsors,
creation of a free trade area in the Euromed region by 2010 and beyond and the promotion of all-round regional economic integration, promoting orderly managed legal migration and fighting illegal migration.

The meeting deferred until its next gathering in November a decision on the seat of the Union of the Mediterranean.

From Bucharest, the online version of Evenimentul Zilei reported that Romanian president Traian Basescu had told a news conference on July 13 that the projects adopted at the meeting could become opportunities for Romanian companies to return to states such as Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Tunisia, lying to the south and east of the Mediterranean.
 
During the first half of the plenary session of the summit, several projects on curbing pollution in the Mediterranean and on its coasts, building sea and land ways, civil protection at the level of the Mediterranean and alternative energy were adopted.

Other projects adopted include a plan for a Euro-Mediterranean University, seen as a contribution to training people in the area, and a Mediterranean initiative to stimulate the setting up of small and medium-sized companies to the south and east of the Mediterranean.
 
According to Financiarul Romania, Basescu told the news conference: "The huge advantage, if we are thinking of the six projects, is that these projects are carried out under the aegis of the EU and the Union for the Mediterranean, so, companies, Romanian ones included, will have a guarantee that any project they commit to is under the aegis of the EU and they don't waste their money. These six projects include small and medium-sized companies, which have to go to smaller states to the south or east of the Mediterranean, with EU support," Basescu said.