The Interegg IIIB MEDOCC programme is an EU-funded initiative aimed at stimulating trans-national cooperation between countries in the Mediterranean area. One of the approved projects, entitled Route des Marchands, Villes des Marchés en Méditerranée, acronym MERCATOR, is to be headed by Heritage Malta, the National Agency for Museums and Conservation practice. This project is aimed at the study, understanding and valorization of various facets of Mediterranean maritime history with special emphasis on merchant cities of the Mediterranean.

Throughout the centuries, all regions of the Mediterranean Basin played an important role in trading activities of the Mediterranean Sea. These regions have created an important link between them using harbours and they have also maintained a more or less intensive and fruitful link which evolved through the ages. A vast commercial system requires good transport logistics in order to achieve shorter, safer, and hence more viable journeys. Moreover, such journeys not only served to transport merchants and
their cargoes but artists, works of art, beliefs, interethnic tolerance and other human values spread across Mediterranean sea routes.

The final purpose of this project is not to rediscover this heritage from a narrow specialists' view, but, whilst respecting scientifically correct interpretations, this project intends to make the subject available to all via the modern means of information technology and modern communications.

To achieve this, a number of conferences and workshops will be organized over the coming two years, events that will bring about the exchange of ideas and technologies involved in the presentation of the maritime past of the Mediterranean. The project will also develop its own website that will incorporate information on events related to MERCATOR, a database of various maritime structures related to trade and exchange as well as various educational pages. In Malta, funds from the MERCATOR project will finance, amongst other things, the setting up of a heritage trail in the harbour area. 75 per cent of Malta's funds will come from the EU whereas the remainder will be financed locally. Other partners who are participating in this project hail from Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Morocco and Lebanon.

The project which started in June 2006 was officially launched during the first Steering Committee Meeting which was held in in Malta in October 2006 at the Malta Maritime Museum in Vittoriosa.