Discover CMEC

For more than forty years, The Conservative Middle East Council (CMEC) has worked to forge trusted relationships and strengthen understanding between the UK and the Middle East & North Africa, (MENA). CMEC helps parliamentarians and the wider public to gain insight into this fascinating, complex and vital region. 

The Conservative Middle East Council's origins reach back to 1980, when Sir Dennis Walters MBE and Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington established CMEC under the supervision of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. This followed her signing of the Venice Declaration, when nine member states of the European Community outlined their European policy on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the aftermath of the 1979 Israel-Egypt peace treaty.

To this day, we continue our work to build trusted relationships and greater understanding of the region by organising events and debates, by organising delegations of Conservative parliamentarians to the MENA region, and in working with delegations from the region visiting the UK. We produce briefings and podcasts, which you can explore on this site, and publish our ever-popular 'Daily Update' bite-sized digest of the day's top news and analysis on the region. (Subscribe below.) We are not-for-profit.