Afterwards
Both Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had high praises for Solana's coordination of the Barcelona Process. Ehud Barak said they had all beaten their swords into ploughshares and that at last Israel had joined the "European Club". Libya was not present at the Conference as Colonel Gaddafi claimed it was a blatant European attempt to gain hegemony outside its borders. However, in 2000, both Gaddafi and his country acknowledged and signed up for the principles laid out in the Barcelona Process. The Barcelona Process, developed after the Conference in successive annual meetings, is a set of goals designed to lead to a free trade area in the Middle East by 2010. Solana has said that by the tenth anniversary of the conference true Middle East peace might be achieved. The Euro-Mediterranean free trade area (EU-MEFTA) is based on the Barcelona Process and ENP. The Agadir Agreement of 2004 is seen as its first building block.
Read more about this topic: Euromediterranean Partnership