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Drawing on his personal experience as Malta's foreign minister from 2004 to 2008, the author argues that the process of Mediterranean integration should be viewed as building a mosaic block by block, with each tile being important to the whole. The original idea for a Union of the Mediterranean is depicted as being superior to its successor, the Union for the Mediterranean The aim should have been to establish a council of the Mediterranean along the lines of the Council of the Baltic States. The political architecture of the Mediterranean is composed of a variable geometry and concentric circles, in which the Olive Group is a "soft" landing place for informal dialogue among the group members and other non-EU states on the Mediterranean littoral.

Electronic commerce has been defined as 'any form of business transaction in which the parties interact electronically rather than by physical exchanges or direct physical contact'. The world of electronic commerce revolves on buying and selling goods and services and carrying out supportive transactions such as customer service and aftercare. It all happens in a spatial vacuum: not physically on any territory but in cyberspace. Electronic commerce developed first as a business-tobusiness phenomenon but has, over the years, become increasingly oriented towards business-to-consumer – electronic retailing, a category that has grown with the advent of the World Wide Web (www). 'There are now shopping malls over the Internet offering all manner of consumer goods from cakes to wine to computers and motor cars' providing 'an unprecedented opportunity for organizations of any size to reach a global customer base over the world wide web. As it has been aptly put, 'Electronic commerce has implications for many facets of our economic and social life because it has the potential to fundamentally change the way commercial transactions, the business of government, the delivery of services and a host of other interactions are conducted, raising issues at the heart of policies directed at the regulation of traditional practices and procedures. How will these changes impact upon the law, both nationally and internationally? The pace is indeed breathtaking. According to the 1997 OECD Discussion Paper Dismantling the Barriers to Global Electronic Commerce, electronic commerce was predicted by most analysts to increase by a factor of ten by the year 2000. Early last month, the Financial Time􀁥 reported a US research company as stating that the volume of business transacted over the net will this year reach $180 billion. Notwithstanding this the electronic commerce market still remains relatively small in comparison to other types of commerce That is still a fraction of what can, and will undoubtedly, be achieved. ; peer-reviewed

While recognising that major strides have been achieved in the recognition of peripherality and insularity in the European Union, it is important to note that, at the present stage, one should not be too triumphalistic about the current situation. Still, we have come a long way. For forty years there was basically no mention at all of the situation of islands and island regions in the basic Treaties. Even today, although there is a new emphasis on islands and island regions, on peripheral regions and ultra-peripheral regions, and on insularity and double insularity, as we shall see, the focus is very much on the infrastructure and human resources side. More can be done, more is needed. Excluding the United Kingdom and Ireland, which are rather large islands, the small island states of Malta and Cyprus represent a first for the European Union. Up to now, islands have been mentioned only in the accession treaties of new member states, and the reference has been to specific islands attached to the acceding states, forming part of the acceding states' territories. The experience of small sovereign island states joining the European Union is particular and new. Thus, for example, in the accession treaties, Denmark referred to the Faeroes and to Greenland, the U .K. referred to the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, Portugal and Spain referred to the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries, Finland referred to the Aland Islands. Reference to all these islands is found in the various accession treaties. These islands have particular rules applicable to them, indicated in the relevant accession treaty. The Aland islands, for example, still offer duty free goods to tourists visiting them because the E.U. legislation governing duty free at airports and seaports does not apply to them. Similarly, there is specific E.U. legislation for the Azores, for Madeira and for the Canaries taking into consideration their very particular status and realities. ; peer-reviewed

The States founding the European Economic Community were seeking to "lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe" by eliminating "the barriers which divide Europe" so as to achieve what they called "the essential objective of their efforts": ''the constant improvement of the living and working conditions of their peoples. '' They therefore established the EEC with the express task of promoting "a harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between the States belonging to it" ; peer-reviewed

Interview with Michael Frendo, conducted 31st January 2014 in London as part of the Commonwealth Oral History Project. The project aims to produce a unique digital research resource on the oral history of the Commonwealth since 1965 through sixty oral history interviews with leading figures in the recent history of the organisation. It will provide an essential research tool for anyone investigating the history of the Commonwealth and will serve to promote interest in and understanding of the organisation. Biography: Frendo, Michael. 1955- . Elected to the House of Representatives of Malta in 1987. Parliamentary Secretary for Youth, Culture and Consumer Protection, 1990-92. Minister for Youth and Arts, 1992-94. Minister for Transport, Communications and Technology, 1994-96. Minister of Foreign Affairs, 2004-08. Member and Chair, Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. Speaker of the House of Representatives of Malta, 2010-13. Lawyer and Consultant, Valletta, 2013- . Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Law, University of Malta, 2013- . Chairman of Banif Bank (Malta) Plc, 2013- .

Avis juridique du Conseil de l'Europe (Commission de Venise, en collaboration avec le Congrès des pouvoirs locaux et régionaux) du 17 juillet 2013 sur le projet final de la Constitution tunisienne du 1er juillet 2013