“A Common Vision for A Progressive Arab World: Listening to the Progressive Mediterranean”

A common vision for a progressive Arab world
Listening to the Progressive Mediterranean initiative

The Arab Spring resulted from social movements and revolutions that demanded social justice, democracy, freedom, independence and equality. Despite the challenging path ahead and the difficult events that still affect our quest for democracy and social justice, we remain committed to reach our goal of building a new Arab World and unite the efforts of all the progressive forces; old and new.

FEPS with the Arab Social Democratic Forum, S&D Group, GPF and PES believe that a united Arab social democratic front is a cornerstone to achieve this goal and is urgently needed at this crucial moment of building true democracies in the Arab World. The potential of partnership of the existing parties and the support that can be provided to the ones being established as well as strengthening the coordination with international partners to promote our common principles cannot be underestimated.

For this historic purpose, they took the initiative to start the process of inaugurating the Arab Social Democratic Forum.

Draft programme

Saturday 19 January 2013: GPF Conference “Progressives Together for Social Justice”
09.00 – 10.00 Opening
10.00 – 11.30 First plenary: “Empowering people through a decent welfare
system”
11.30 – 13.00 Second plenary: “Youth unemployment – progressive solutions”
13.00 – 15.00 Lunch Break
15.00 – 16.30 Third plenary: “Progressive proposals for social and economic
development”
16.30 – 18.00 Public closing and adoption of Commitment Declaration

Sunday 20 January 2013: “Arab Social Democratic Forum”
09.00 – 10.00 Opening
10.00 – 11.30 First plenary: “Identifying the common challenges”
11.30 – 13.00 Second plenary: “The need for a united progressive response”
13.00 -14.00 Closing session