The selection of the Pontine Archipelago as the site of the initiative has a high symbolic value. The Italian fascist regime confined political dissidents, including Altiero Spinelli, Sandro Pertini, Pietro Nenni, and Umberto Terracini on the island of Ponza (1937-1939), then deported to the island of Ventotene (1939-1943), where Spinelli wrote the Manifesto for a free and united Europe in 1941, imagining the rebirth of a democratic and peaceful Europe.

On the occasion of the Ponza Prima-Med Second Edition the speakers at the annual Euro-Mediterranean inter-institutional conference (Ponza, September 14, 2020) – including Amb. Miguel Angel Moratinos, High Representative of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC), Amb. Nasser Kamel, Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, the late Dr. Nabil Al-Sharif, Executive Director of ALF, and Prof. Angelo Riccaboni, President of the PRIMA Foundation – celebrated, for the first time all together, the values of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation inspired by the Barcelona Declaration, on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, launching – to honor the memory of the aforementioned historic political dreamers confined in the Archipelago – a Euro-Med Manifesto on Sustainable Development. Participants agreed on the proposal to transform the Turtledoves Villa (Villa delle Tortore), located in the center of Ponza, into a Center for Higher Education and Science Diplomacy on Sustainability – agri-food systems, sustainable development, climate change, blue and circular economy, Identitary Cuisine – considering the Villa as an ideal location for activities benefitting women and younger generations in the Mediterranean area.