Mediterranean Foresight: Shaping Europe’s Future Value Chains

The report examines the Mediterranean's potential to transition from a transit geography into a coordinated production, energy, and logistics corridor for European value chains. Using a Delphi survey and scenario planning, it identifies four possible futures by 2035 based on geoeconomic order and technological positioning. It proposes a set of 'no-regret' strategic actions—including coordination for collective resilience, technology capacity-building, trade route visibility, and infrastructure integration—to ensure regional competitiveness regardless of which scenario materializes.

• Global value chains are shifting from cost optimization toward agility and regionalization, with the number of corporate leaders actively regionalizing production increasing by nearly 300% between 2020 and 2025.
• The Mediterranean region's potential as a coordinated corridor is currently hindered by several factors, including fragmented governance, ageing infrastructure, uneven technological capabilities, and diverse regulatory frameworks.
• The report identifies four plausible futures for the Mediterranean by 2035 based on the axes of geoeconomic order (fragmented vs. integrated) and technological positioning (lagging vs. leading): 'Game of fortresses', 'Digital blocs', 'United analogue states', and 'High-speed intelligent corridors'.
• Four 'no-regret' strategic actions were identified as robust across all future scenarios: coordinating for collective resilience (focusing on climate and energy security), building sovereign technology capacity through open-access hubs, increasing trade route visibility via shared data, and integrating corridor infrastructure.
• The region possesses specific strategic assets that can support Europe's industrial agenda, including key maritime gateways like Piraeus, Marseille, Algeciras, Tanger Med, and the Suez Canal, as well as significant solar and wind resources.
• To operationalize the strategic agenda, the report suggests creating a 'Mediterranean trust forum' for practical stakeholder alignment and a 'Mediterranean data-sharing framework' to resolve the lack of shared infrastructure for trade and industrial data.

APA

World Economic Forum (2026). Mediterranean Foresight: Shaping Europe’s Future Value Chains. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Mediterranean_Foresight_2026.pdf

Chicago

World Economic Forum. Mediterranean Foresight: Shaping Europe’s Future Value Chains. 2026. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Mediterranean_Foresight_2026.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=World Economic Forum |title=Mediterranean Foresight: Shaping Europe’s Future Value Chains |date=September 2026 |url=https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Mediterranean_Foresight_2026.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{worldeconomicforum2026mediterranean, author = {{World Economic Forum}}, title = {{Mediterranean Foresight: Shaping Europe’s Future Value Chains}}, institution = {World Economic Forum}, year = {2026}, month = sep, url = {https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Mediterranean_Foresight_2026.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }