|
A Union for the MED: What for?
It is almost a year since
President Sarkozy has launched his idea for a “Mediterranean Union” uniting all
riparian countries in a more intensive form of cooperation than the Barcelona
process between the EU and its neighbours in the MED.
Today, nothing is left of
his initial idea. The name has changed into “Union for the Mediterranean”,
composed of all EU and all MED countries, including the Western Balkans, a tall
figure of almost 50 participants. According to French-German thinking the
primary function of this Union should be the promotion of “new projects of a
regional dimension”. Two co-presidents, from the south and the north, assisted
by a “light” Secretariat, composed from officials from the south and the north
should be in charge of organising summit and ministerial meetings.
A summit meeting of all
the prospective parties scheduled for July 13-14 in Paris will formally
inaugurate the new “UfM”. During the past few months hectic and often confused
discussions have taken place in Europe and around the MED on how to best fit
the “UfM”into the existing structures of Euro-MED cooperation.
These discussions have
centred on the mechanics and the institutional aspects rather than on
substance. There has been little debate on the value added of the “UfM” over
the intensive cooperation that is already taking place between the north and
south, both bilaterally and regionally.
Indeed, there is hardly
any area, from education to environment, energy, migration or security that is
not covered by almost monthly ministerial meetings and 50 working groups set up
to exchange ideas between officials from both sides of the MED. Up to now, the
Commission and the Secretariat of the EU Council prepare these meetings in
close collaboration with their colleagues from the South; and everybody seems
quite happy with this setup.
Of course, the North has
always been the driving force behind the process. But considering the political
divisions and logistic incapacities of the south, nobody has seriously taken
issue with the northern “dominance”. Will a new Secretariat, composed of 20
officials from both sides, located somewhere in the MED, do a more efficient
job or simply create bureaucratic frictions between Brussels and say Malta or
Tunis, the possible locations of the Secretariat?
And can anyone really
believe that two-year “Co-Presidencies”, say of the French and Egyptian
Presidents, will correct the structural imbalances between the “powerful” EU
and 10-12 countries in the south that lack coherence and good governance!
The Euro-MED partnership
does neither need a new name nor additional institutional and bureaucratic
gimmicks. It needs more sincere debates on what is going wrong in the south. It
needs more focus on the four basic issues the south will increasingly face in
the coming decades: high unemployment, inadequate education, increasing
environmental strains and last, not least, poor governance.
Despite innumerable
conferences and talks the EU has failed to put the necessary political and
financial focus on its southern neighbours. It spends less than one percent of
its budget - one billion Euros annually - on helping the south face its huge
modernisation problems, to which one may add three billion Euros EIB loans
annually.
The Summit Meeting July
13-14 may help to raise awareness among European political leaders for what is
at stake in the MED. To that end, both sides have to address the serious
political, economic, social and environmental challenges the MED faces today
and even more so in the future. To tackle them, serious in-depth reforms will
be necessary. Europe already offers its experience and a bit of money to those
countries that engage in serious reform policies. It should do more. The real
work has to take place at home, not in jumbo meetings.
|
Europe