Bethlehem - Ma'an - Failure to agree on how to name the occupied Palestinian territories has prevented representatives of the 43 countries of the Union for the Mediterranean (UFM) from approving a joint strategy for guaranteeing the water resources of the whole Mediterranean basin.

A document intended to promote common initiatives for water management, which was due to be the first major strategy of the recently created UFM, had been expected to come out of the 4th Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference, the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (EPNI) said Wednesday.

However, during a news conference following the meeting, the insurmountable obstacle was a nuance of terminology, since Israel’s representatives would not accept the document referring to "occupied territories," instead proposing the term "territories under occupation," which, EPNI wrote, was not acceptable to the Arab bloc.

The strategy was meant to establish the political, methodological and financial framework for bringing in regional policies on the matter. It envisaged reducing the consumption of water between now and the year 2025, to levels 25 percent below those of 2005.

The conference, jointly chaired by the Spanish Minister for the Environment and Rural and Marine Affairs Elena Espinosa, brought together ministers from the 43 countries of the UFM, together with representatives of the European Commission and the Arab League, along with representatives of civil society and financial institutions.

In her opening speech, Espinosa described the Mediterranean as an imbalanced hydrological basin, with extreme phenomena of cyclical floods and droughts, requiring UFM nations to adopt a "common strategy for a scarce resource," she was quoted as saying in a a news release from the Spanish Presidency of EU.