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Sarkozy's
Mediterranean Union
President Nicolas Sarkozy
of France believes passionately in a Mediterranean Union, and is putting a great
deal of energy - and urgency - into bringing it to birth.
Heads of state and
government of 43 potential member states have been invited to attend a summit
meeting on 13 July, when they are expected to issue a ringing declaration
formally launching the Union.
For extra solemnity, the
summit will be held in the grandiose setting of the Grand Palais, a vast
ironwork and glass structure, built in the heart of Paris for the Universal
Exhibition of 1900.
In the meantime, planning
for the launch is in the hands of a high-powered French team, led by Ambassador
Alain Leroy, which Sarkozy has housed under his direct supervision at 23 Avenue
Marigny, a former Rothschild mansion just across the street from the Elyse
Palace.
What exactly is the
proposed Mediterranean Union about, and why the urgency? The Mediterranean lies
at the centre of Sarkozy's geo-political vision. "The Mediterrean,"
he likes to say, "is not our past but our future", in the sense that
he believes that many of Europe's most acute problems can be solved only in
close coordination with the countries on the other side of the sea. This vision
has led him to undertake several state visits to North Africa.
The problems he has in
mind are familiar ones which have been much debated: terrorism; illegal
immigration; pollution of the sea affecting tourism and fisheries; scarcity of
fresh water; rampant unemployment and over-population in the South;
desertification which is spreading to countries such as Spain, Italy and
Greece; and a widening of the already wide gap in personal incomes between
North and South.
In other words, Europe's
security and prosperity can only be assured if the countries bordering the
Mediterranean also enjoy security and prosperity - but this requires a major
joint initiative by both North and South. Behind this thinking is a sense that
since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Western Europe has tended to neglect
its southern flank while devoting much aid and attention to the countries of
Central and Eastern Europe.
Sarkozy's Mediterranean
Union project faced early objections from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. She
feared that he was planning to include only France, Spain and Italy in the
proposed Mediterranean Union, excluding all other European Union member states.
This problem was resolved when it was agreed that all 27 members of the EU
would be members of the Union pour la Mediterranée (UPM). They will be joined
by the countries bordering the Mediterranean, as well as by Jordan and
Mauritania - 43 countries in all.
Turkey was alarmed because
Sarkozy's plan was first billed as a device to keep Turkey out of the EU by
offering it the alternative of membership of the UPM. Turkish anxieties have
since been partially allayed by its proposed participation in some of the major
economic projects Sarkozy hopes to initiate.
Political conflicts
More than a decade ago,
the Barcelona Process was launched in 1995, precisely in the hope that European
money would help resolve political conflicts among the states bordering the
Mediterranean, leading to economic development - and thus to preventing the
import into Western Europe of terrorism and unwanted migrants.
But the Barcelona Process
has been a failure - or at least only a very partial success. It was launched
at a time of high expectations. The Madrid Conference of 1991 and the Oslo
Accords of 1993 seemed to open the way to a settlement of the Arab-Israeli
conflict. But these expectations were soon disappointed.
The assassination of
Israel's prime minister Yitzak Rabin by a Jewish fanatic in November 1995 put
an end to peace-making. It was followed instead by a period of heightened
Arab-Israeli tension and violence. This in turn has contributed to the rise of
militant Islamic movements, to the terrorist attacks on America of September
11, 2001, to neo-colonial wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to a dangerous, and
still un-bridged, rift between the West and the Arab and Islamic world. Against
these odds, the Barcelona Process could make little headway.
One should add that another
reason the Barcelona Process failed was because it was undermined by the
conflict between Morocco and Algeria over the Western Sahara, which prevented
the creation of a single market in North Africa and thus discouraged inward
investment into the region.
Over time, the Barcelona
Process came to be seen as a doomed paternalistic project, launched by European
governments for their own selfish purposes, with little input from countries in
the east and south of the Mediterranean.
Sarkozy's strategy today
is to reverse the objectives. Instead of pressing for the resolution of
political conflicts as a preliminary to economic development, his approach is
to start with major economic projects in the belief that they will, in time,
yield political dividends.
Among the projects now
being discussed on both sides of the Mediterranean is a scheme to clean up - or
de-pollute - the sea by 2020, with a first-stage investment of $2 billion.
Another scheme, dear to Egypt, is to create a high-speed shipping route between
Alexandria and Tangiers - a sort of maritime motorway. There are plans to
harness solar energy for the Mediterranean region, and to manage scarce water
resources more efficiently, so as to provide drinking water for all and a
better use of waste water for irrigation.
The French are
particularly keen on creating a unified Mediterranean scientific and university
"space", in which professional training will be provided for
managers, scientists and technicians, so as to improve agriculture and
fisheries, and check the relentless advance of desertification. Plans are also
being prepared for a Mediterranean civil protection centre, for an agency to
promote small and medium sized industries, for a possible Mediterranean bank,
and much else besides.
Unlike the Barcelona
Process, the idea this time is fully to involve the populations of the southern
and eastern Mediterranean, to seek the participation of private sector
interests and civil society associations, as well as financing not only from
European governments and institutions, but also from the oil-rich countries of
the Gulf Cooperation Council.
The idea is that the
Mediterranean lies at the centre of a vast region extending from Africa to the
Gulf. The calculation is that a healthy and prosperous Mediterranean will
reinforce the position of Europe in the world and allow European to play a
greater role in advancing the cause of peace in the Middle East.
"The objective of the
Mediterranean Union is political," Ambassador Leroy says, "but it is
driven by economics. We cannot wait for conflicts to be resolved before
launching our projects. But the Union will launch a process which will, it is
hoped, help solve the political conflicts". He adds that the great project
of the European Union - 27 member states and a combined population of 495
million - started with the modest Coal and Steel Community.
Sarkozy is determined to
make the Mediterranean Union one of the great achievements of his presidency.
It remains to be seen whether the injection of his redoubtable political will
can make the ambitious project a reality.
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