Several new portfolios have been created in the current European Commission, to reflect the EU's changing priorities. One of those is a Commissioner for the Mediterranean. This is a crucial region for the EU, as the bloc grapples with difficult issues such as migration, climate and energy. The EU wants to pursue this southern pivot by signing a Pact for the Mediterranean with North African and Middle Eastern countries. Our guest is the EU's Commissioner for the Mediterranean, Dubravka Suica. She is a Croatian centre-right politician and she held the Democracy and Demography portfolio in the first von der Leyen Commission, from 2019 to 2024. She has also been an MEP. 

We begin with this year's UN General Assembly, and the growing number of EU member states that recognised a Palestinian state. "This General Assembly showed a big step forward because more than 160 countries recognised Palestine," Suica states. "And I'm sure that this somehow created new momentum, regardless of some divisions which you mentioned within the EU. We will see in the next Foreign Affairs Council what the situation is among EU member states. I think that we are still not united, but things are going in the right direction, especially now after we have this 21-point plan which was offered by President Trump to both Israel and Palestine."

On the Palestine Donor Group, initially outlined by EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech, Suica says: "We are sure that we will establish this group by the end of this year. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is interested, so we will somehow co-chair this donor group. But this is the moment to invite everyone in the world to help reconstruct Gaza, and to think about how to anticipate the situation after a ceasefire. [My] Mediterranean portfolio is not only North Africa and the Middle East, but also the Gulf countries. Without them, we cannot achieve peace and security in the region. We badly need all the Gulf countries on board."

Suica insists that the new Pact for the Mediterranean, scheduled to be announced by the European Commission on October 16, will be "for the benefit of both sides of the Mediterranean, north and south, because we think that there is a lot of potential in in the Mediterranean. It's about everything. It's about the environment; keeping this area clean and not polluted. It's about trade. It's about development. It's about education. It's not only about migration. Migration is only one of the points within our strategic partnership agreements."

But will this Pact not end up creaming off skilled labour from the southern Mediterranean to plug job shortages in Europe? "We don't want to create brain drain in these countries," Suica answers. "We don't want to take all their doctors, their engineers, their intellectual elite. We are putting people at the centre. It's about young people. They can help us to connect the people of the Mediterranean. This is exactly why I would like to establish a Mediterranean University, be it in Beirut, Alexandria, Fez or Barcelona."

Suica was about to travel to Tunisia, a key partner for the EU, just after our interview. We asked her about the human rights abuses in that country, and whether the EU has been too soft. "With Tunisia, we always insist on transparency," she replies. "We insist on registering migrants, which is not the case at the moment. So this is something that we are working on with them, not only me, but also my colleague, Commissioner Brunner. There is space for improvement. But at the same time, if we are not there, who will be there? We don't want other players, be it Russia, be it China. We want to be there as the European Union."

Demography is part of Suica's portfolio, and we touch on the declining fertility rates in the EU. "When we mention fertility and fertility rates, it's a competence of the member states, not of the European Union," Suica explains. "But we are trying to create an environment for families to thrive, to have housing, to have jobs. We need more kindergartens, nursery homes and so on. In order for people to eventually have more kids. But this is a very serious situation in Europe. When you look at the southern Mediterranean, you see a boom. And in Europe we have a shrinkage."