Mediterranean-Union

The ‘Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean' gives a new impulse to the Barcelona Process in at least three very important ways: by upgrading the political level of the EU's relationship with its Mediterranean partners; by providing for further co-ownership to our multilateral relations; and by making these relations more concrete and visible through additional regional and subregional projects, relevant for the citizens of the region, according to the Joint Declaration adopted at the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean (13 July). The Summit, co-chaired by French President and President of the European Council, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, brought together 43 European and Mediterranean States, the Community institutions and the regional organisations. The Heads of State and Government agreed on the creation of a co-presidency and decided that a joint secretariat will be established, with one of the co-presidents from the EU and the other from a Partner state. The Arab League shall be invited to the meetings. The Ministers of Foreign Affairs will finalise the modalities for the institutional set-up of the initiative during their next meeting in November. The new structures for the initiative should be fully operational before the end of 2008. Joint Declaration

The 20-page Declaration notes that this initiative will build on the Barcelona Declaration and its objectives of achieving peace, stability and security, as well as the acquis of the Barcelona Process. The leaders share the conviction that this initiative can play an important role in addressing common challenges facing the Euro-Med region, such as economic and social development; world food security crisis; degradation of the environment, including climate change and desertification, with the view of promoting sustainable development; energy; migration; terroris m and extremism; as well as promoting dialogue between cultures.

An Annex to the Declaration sets out the priority fields and key initiatives, which the future Secretariat is mandated to detail. These are:

·                     De-pollution of the Mediterranean.

·                     Maritime and Land Highways.

·                     Civil Protection.

·                     Alternative Energies: Mediterranean Solar Plan.

·                     Higher Education and Research, Euro-Mediterranean University.

·                     The Mediterranean Business Development Initiative.

According to the Declaration, the Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean will be complementary to EU bilateral relations with the Partner countries, which will continue under existing policy frameworks such as the Association Agreements, the European Neighbourhood Policy action plans, and, in the case of Mauritania, the African Caribbean Pacific framework. The leaders underscored the importance of the active participation of civil society, local and regional authorities and the private sector.

How it will operate?

The leaders agreed to hold biennial summits, which will result in a political declaration and a short list of concrete regional projects. Annual Foreign Affairs Ministerial meetings will review progress in the implementation of the summit conclusions and prepare the next summit meetings, that should take place alternately in the EU and in Mediterranean partner countries.

The Euro-Med Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) will be the legitimate parliamentary expression of the initiative and the Anna Lindh Euro-Med Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures will contribute to its cultural dimension.

EC President's address to the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean

Through the ‘Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean' we want to elevate our partnership to other, higher, levels, European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, said at the Paris Summit to launch the new initiative, attended by heads of state and government of the Euro-Med Partnership countries and other representatives. He said this will be done through concrete projects and by concentrating on priorities that are to the benefit of the citizens, outlining the four issues on which emphasis will be given. President Barroso assured that the EC is parti cipating in this effort with enthusiasm and determination.

Speech (FR only)

EP and EMPA President's address to the Summit for the Mediterranean

"Since 1995 the Barcelona Process has unquestionably achieved a certain prestige. Its attainments to date should not be disregarded; however the time is ripe to give the Process a new impetus," European Parliament and Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) President, Hans-Gert Pöttering, told the "Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean" Summit (July 13). "Above all," he said, "our citizens should feel implicated in this cooperation process. If we put into place practical projects su ch as access to water, food and energy sources, the resultant benefits and direct effects on people's everyday lives will be immediately tangible."

The European Council has approved the principle of a Union for the Mediterranean, which will include the Member States of the EU and the non-EU Mediterranean coastal states.

The idea of a union in the Mediterranean region was for a long time ambiguous and blurry. Its contours remain only loosely defined, however, it has recently been much discussed and has been the object of several attempts at analysis, most of which were eventually challenged, leading to successive changes being made to the original concept. It thus evolved from the initial “Mediterranean Union”, to the “Union for the Mediterranean”, and later becoming the “Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean”, following the European Summit in Brussels, 13-14 March 2008.

It should be noted that while initiatives targeting the Mediterranean have not been lacking, none has to this day truly managed to achieve its objectives. European initiatives such as the European policy for the Mediterranean, the EMP, and the ENP each sought to make the Mediterranean a space of peace, stability and prosperity. All lauded the stabilisation of the region through the virtues of free-exchange. Europe demanded that its Mediterranean partners adhere to its system, notably that of democracy and the State of law, offering them in exchange a share of the prosperity bred by its liberal economy, and even promising access to the “four liberties” to those who progressed most quickly within the framework
of the new Neighbourhood Policy. These diverse arrangements failed to convince, however, the
Southern Mediterranean countries, resistant to rapid social and political changes, as well as those
of the North, little inclined to direct investments, technological transfers, or the global treatment of
cultural and migratory issues related to the field of security. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
aggravated an already complex situation and resulted in a political block within the Partnership.
Considering this backdrop, can a Mediterranean union resolve or work around these issues? By not addressing them immediately, or even ignoring them, does this union not risk mortgaging the
future of what is a potentially successful Mediterranean neighbourhood? Does such a paralysis not
risk affecting the proposed union, thus fuelling reactions wavering between prudence and
enthusiasm?

Starting from this, it is unavoidable that the southern EU partners be tempted, with France’s
announcement of the Mediterranean Union project, to evoke a negative balance of the Barcelona
Process (BP), coupled with a certain reticence vis-à-vis the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
As regards the first, for a few years now, the governments of the South have voiced much criticism
concerning the BP’s incapacity to attain its set objectives. The last exasperating straw was on the
occasion of the BP’s tenth anniversary, where the absence of Arab Mediterranean leaders was
sorely noted. Most southern Mediterranean experts claim that the Process has not improved the
asymmetries still dividing the opposite shores of the Mediterranean.

Despite these criticisms, the southern Mediterranean leaders of the Maghreb region emphasised
the importance of not disassociating this new project from the EMP, estimating that such a union
should contribute towards a re-launching of the Barcelona Process. The project’s evolution and its
adoption during the March European Summit as a continuity to the Barcelona Process, finally
lends reason to those from the South who predicted this development and who feel reassured by
the participation of all EU member states, confirmed by the Franco-German compromise
announced in Hanover on 3 March 2008. This springs from reactions expressed by Maghreb
leaders who insisted on the importance, in one form or another, of Germany’s participation, seeing
as it is a crucial actor in the Mediterranean and a privileged economic partner in the Maghreb
region. Now that the participation of all is assured, consensus has emerged regarding the proposal
that the Union for the Mediterranean act instead as an updated and improved model of the EMP.
But will it live up to this expectation? A question difficult to confirm at this stage, especially since
the Partnership does not operate solely on a multilateral basis, but mainly through multi- and
bilateral agreements of association that at present will remain unchanged.

Nevertheless, certain elements of this “new and improved” Barcelona Process, within the context of
the Union for the Mediterranean, appear to command a particular interest and, at the same time,
respond to demands expressed by southern partners. The preoccupation is in establishing a
balanced basis that will allow all actors to engage in the elaboration of common projects on an
equal footing. This notion of equality, flawed within the Barcelona framework, failed to promote a
sense of appropriation amongst the partners of the southern shores. Calls from these countries
requested that they be more integrated in the decision-making process, at the very least on a
consultative basis, seeing as these were matters perceived by the South as ones of shared
interest.

For a long time, the southern Mediterranean states, or at least many of them, demanded that the
EMP outline a concerted direction as a means of assuring a rebalance between the two groups of
partners. Some affirmed that it was necessary to reach this solution in order to “rotate responsibility
amongst each State, directing or otherwise implying a global vision of related matters”. The
principle of co-presidency surfaced within the framework of the Union for the Mediterranean, or at
least that is what emerges from the Franco-German agreement on this initiative, which also
indicates an intention to establish a small secretariat of around twenty people that shall be
jointly-led by a Director from the North and another from the South, who are also charged with
assisting the co-presidency. This does not impede criticism and reticence from the part of certain
European actors, who doubt that the new structures will be compatible with already existing ones,
and from certain southern Mediterraneans, notably Arabs, who not seeing being subject to an
Israeli presidency in a good light, altogether refuse the possibility of this eventuality.
If the principle of co-direction is definitely maintained, it shall require a reformulation of the
Partnership’s institutional plan, with the creation of an exclusive competence within the domain of
the EMP. This competency should permit it to contribute, or at least have a say, in the elaboration
and implementation of the Partnership’s policy, and not only in the organisation of summit
meetings. It should also allow watchful management of the application of the associative Accords,
and finally, assume a role as mediator in disputes between partners.

In relation to the initiative’s content, a Union for the Mediterranean founded on the notion of a
union of projects and building on the domains where progress is already in evidence, seems to
respond to some southern Mediterranean expectations, while at the same time discarding the
integrationist aspirations, as were formulated in the project’s original version, where the focus was on creating a union that would permit a form of political integration an aim provoking great
enthusiasm. The initial orientation, of structuring the initiative around the idea of integration, was,
however, dashed by the reticence of certain European states and their desire for re-equilibrium.
This ended up reframing the project, by explicitly pursuing a logic of cooperation that from then on
prevailed over the integrationist logic a tendency confirmed following the adoption of the project,
during the recent European summit, as a continuity to the Barcelona Process.

Although it appears that the southern Mediterranean countries are interested in this new
orientation, they reveal differences in approach linked to the lessons learnt from the failures of the
Barcelona Process: namely, lack of means, lack of structures, deficiencies in the area of
governance, and shortcomings in trans-Mediterranean market integration. Others highlight
objective difficulties that would be dangerous to obscure and that question the efficiency of the
project method, with countries’ stability threatened by terrorist, migratory and climactic challenges.
On the other hand, serious conflicts (Sahara being a main one) persist between some southern
partners, weighing heavily on public opinion and the government of each country, and preventing
them from accomplishing their process of integration – a necessary condition if companies and
private investors are to be offered a driving role, as is predicted and hoped for the projects of the
Union for the Mediterranean.

See also.