Italy will launch an Erasmus programme for the Mediterranean when it chairs the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe next year, Italy 's foreign minister Angelino Alfano said on Tuesday.
"This will be the first act of the Italian chairmanship of OSCE," Alfano told Italian daily Corriere della Sera in an interview.
"We need to focus on security, in the knowledge that culture can be on of its essential components," Alfano added.
Migration in the Mediterranean and related security issues are at the centre of a meeting in Palermo, Sicily on Tuesday and Wednesday attended by representatives of OCSE's 57 member-states and its six Mediterranean partners - Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
Alfano and OSCE chairman Sebastian Kurz and secretary-general Thomas Greminger were due to open the two-day meeting which is being hosted by Italy and held at Palermo's Palazzo dei Normanni.
Alfano last week called for closer relations with Arab countries in the Mediterranean region. Cultural cooperation is the main driving-force to boost dialogue and a "shared project" of growth and development, he said on Friday.
