|
On an Ancient
Sea, Europe Dreams and Schemes
IT is the original sea of
epics, crossed by Ulysses on his journey home and Aeneas on his way to founding
what became Rome. So it is natural for European leaders to cast their actions
in the Mediterranean in grand terms.
The latest example comes
from France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose efforts to move Europe, not
to mention French arms industries, closer to northern Africa are being
presented within a vision of a new union of nations along the Mediterranean.
Europe — France and Italy
in particular — has trouble integrating Muslim immigrants and worries about
Islamic extremists. So, under this grand vision, efforts would be made to
invest in and give favorable trade terms to North African states. In theory, these
nations would become richer over time, and their people would have fewer
incentives to leave.
That idea, of a
Mediterranean Union, has been circulating around Europe for more than a decade,
offered up by various European leaders. Mr. Sarkozy put it front and center
again in May, in his victory speech after winning the French presidency.
“The time has come,” he
said, “to build together a Mediterranean Union that will be the bridge between
Europe and Africa.”
The notion is beguiling:
rich and poor nations, democratic and not, Muslims and Christians, from North
Africa and Asia Minor and the Middle East and Western Europe, lashed together
to form a richer and safer region.
It will probably never
happen, at least not in the formal way Mr. Sarkozy and other European leaders
have been talking about it.
Still, the project remains
a useful lens for seeing how Europe is focusing more tightly on its backyard to
solve immediate problems: Muslim immigration, crime and terror, and Russia’s
politicization of its energy supplies.
Take the recent events
involving the region’s most troublesome member, Libya.
Last month, Mr. Sarkozy’s
wife swooped into Libya to help free five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian
doctor held there for eight years on charges, widely regarded as trumped up, of
infecting children with H.I.V. Mr. Sarkozy visited the next day. Then, on
Friday, France announced an arms deal with Libya worth a reported $402 million.
Everyone seemed to walk
away happy: Mr. Sarkozy burnished his credentials as a can-do, out-of-the-box
achiever (though the French opposition called the arms deal unseemly, so soon
after the medical workers’ release). French industry found new customers. And
the deal, no doubt, did not hurt French oil interests already investing there.
Libya and its leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, were able to take several steps
out of the darkness of international isolation, without any concessions to
changing how he runs the country.
If something similar
happened on a wider scale, and with more formal structures, it might match the
embryonic vision of Mediterranean integration that Prime Minister Romano Prodi
of Italy has been talking about for years.
“It’s something that is
beneficial for them, but also for us,” said Stefano Sannino, Mr. Prodi’s top
diplomatic adviser. “More stability, less danger of terrorism, less illegal
immigration. Generally speaking, if your neighbor is wealthier, you are
wealthier. If your neighbor is more stable, you are more stable.”
Geoff D. Porter, a Middle
East and Africa analyst for the Eurasia Group, which advises corporations on
political risks, said, “The stick is tough immigration laws, the carrot is
development in the countries where the immigrants come from.”
For engaged European
nations — mostly in the south since non-Mediterranean countries like Germany
tend to look east — there are other benefits: Oil and gas in Libya and Algeria
could help insulate them from a less predictable Russia, while also benefiting
their own oil companies.
For France, it is an
opportunity to engage more muscularly in a largely French-speaking region that
it has long considered in its sphere of interest. Italy can assert its
traditional role in Libya and work toward the greater diplomatic role it
aspires to in the region.
Some experts argue,
however, that it all sounds a little too convenient, and overlooks a sackful of
risks that are likely to make any Mediterranean Union far less a marriage
between Europe and its southern neighbors and more like a very adult, long-term
understanding. Most doubtful are Mr. Sarkozy’s hopes for Turkey.
He opposes Turkey’s
efforts to join the European Union and hopes it would settle instead for
membership, and a major role, in a Mediterranean Union. That is unlikely, and
raises the question of whether a Mediterranean Union could be credible without
Turkey (remember, Troy is there).
“It’s a non-starter for
Turkey,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and head of EDAM, a
political research institute based in Istanbul. “Turkey believes that it has
embarked on a very determined path which would take her toward full membership”
in the E.U., not some second-tier grouping.
“How are you going to
develop this political body in a region where political developments — the state’s
respect for fundamental rights, democratic freedoms — are so different across
the board?” Mr. Ulgen asked.
Then there is debate over
whether investment like that envisioned by European nations really would raise
living standards in northern Africa. Many experts argue that oil and gas
development has a particularly bad track record in closing the gap between rich
and poor.
Erik Jones, professor of
European studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
in Bologna, said, “It’s like Nigeria,” which has by far Africa’s largest oil
reserves. “If Sarkozy’s arguments were right, we would see many fewer Nigerian
immigrants coming to Europe, and we see exactly the opposite,” he noted.
Mr. Jones said he did not
dispute the notion that investment could raise living standards, but only if it
creates wealth beyond the elite. In the same way, Mr. Ulgen said that Turkey
would not rule out a role in some Mediterranean body, but not at the cost of
full E.U. membership.
In other words, maybe the
way to bring a Mediterranean Union into being would be to make it a prelude,
not an alternative, to joining the European Union.
But, of course, that would
mean rethinking what it means to be part of Europe.
|
Europe