Activities
Launched in 1995 to break the spiral of the crisis being experienced by Marseille (the city had lost in 20 years, nearly 50,000 jobs and 150 000 inhabitants), Euroméditerranée is an urban renewal and economic development project run by an E.P.A (Public Urban development Agency) named Etablissement Public d’Aménagement Euroméditerranée (or EPAEM). Created for the purpose of leading and implementing the project and to strengthen the involvement of the State alongside its local partners, Euroméditerranée has been endowed with the status of NATIONAL INTEREST OPERATION (Opération d’Interêt National or OIN). This special status allows the state to take over the control of land policy, owned by the city, in an area defined by an official decree stating the size, aims and goals of the operation. Because of the complexity and variety of issues and the size of the operation (Euroméditerranée covers since 2007, 480 hectares) to be conducted, the city of Marseille has teamed up, first, with the State and, then, with all public authorities: Metropolitan Council, County Council, Regional Council. The main missions assigned to the operation since1995: • Finding new solutions to an economic and social conditions deteriorated in the heart of France's second city by building a world-class CBD • Allowing Marseille to play, again, its role as a center of trade and flows between Europe and the Mediterranean at the time of launch of the Barcelona Process in 1992. • Addressing urban solutions to re-develop the urban port area shattered by the industrial crisis.