(ATHENS) - European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso on Friday called for "urgent delivery" of plans for a Mediterranean Union aimed at strengthening cooperation with countries from Morocco to Turkey.

"The Mediterranean is an absolute priority for Europe, a priority on which delivery has now become urgent," Barroso told an Athens meeting of parliament presidents from the 37 member states of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.

"We need to move from intentions to delivery -- we need a Euro-Med of results," he said.

France is hosting a summit on the issue in July, and Barroso said he wanted it "to be a success, so there is urgency."

The region faces "major challenges in achieving peace, security and prosperity," the EU commission president said, with key issues including migration, gender equality and energy cooperation.

On March 14, EU leaders approved a French plan for a Mediterranean Union agreed on a need to boost ties with the region, but baulked at creating a new, potentially costly, structure on which to base the partnership.

The plan is mainly promoted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes France's six-month EU presidency starting on July 1 will bolster its role within Europe and is pushing proposals for tougher EU-wide immigration control.

The EU already has a framework in place for political, economic and social ties around the Mediterranean basin, the so-called Barcelona Process launched in 1995.

But the process has regularly been thwarted in its aims by confrontation between Israel and Arab countries.

"I think it is undeniable that the major single issue that has held us back is the enduring Middle East conflict," Barroso said on Friday.

He noted that the EU was the area's largest investor and foreign direct investment to the Mediterranean basin has quadrupled from 10 billion dollars (6.3 billion euros) in 2000 to 40 billion in 2006.

"But we are nowhere near our ambition of realising the fully-fledged Euromed Regional Free Trade Area, the largest in the world, by 2010," he said.

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