It was probably French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s most propitious moment yet since he won office last year. Last week at the end of a two-day EU summit in Brussels, Sarkozy’s partnership proposal with the Southern Mediterranean region won enough backing to set it up for a grand launch in Paris in July.
The new political “Club Med” project has been watered down to appease European critics such as Germany and the UK that it now looks similar in many aspects to the existing Euromed project which was born out of the Barcelona process in 1995.
Sarkozy has been promoting his proposal for a “Union of the Mediterranean” ever since he took over the presidency. Initially the project sought to limit European partnership to fewer EU countries. The latest version would involve all of the EU’s 27 countries plus a dozen North African and Middle Eastern countries, including Israel, Syria and the Palestinian Authority.
Initially, the plan was rebuffed by France’s major European partners. Germany and Britain both received it with skepticism. Even some French observers sought to look for the real motives behind his proposal. Sarkozy was accused, among other things, of wanting to use the scheme to restore France’s credibility and standing both inside Europe and beyond. That could be so.
But on the face of it, few could disagree with the declared intentions of bridging the gap between the European nation and its closest neighbors.
Comparisons with the Barcelona process and the resulting declaration could not be missed. More than 12 years since the Barcelona process was launched it was missing so many targets that most of the partners on both sides of the Mediterranean were losing interest. Barcelona had a political vision as well; it was betting on the nascent Middle East peace process and its prospects. It was a different world then: a few years away from the collapse of peace hopes, 9/11 and the international war on terror.
Still, rejecting Sarkozy’s plan outright would have proved to be a big misjudgment on the part of Europe’s leaders. The Southern Mediterranean has become an integral part of the continent’s political, social and economic realities. European Muslims are the biggest single religious minority and Europe receives no less than a million immigrants every year, most of whom come from the MENA region.
It is perhaps this fact that has made it imperative for Europe to examine its relations with its southern neighbors. Most strategic studies have come to the conclusion that it is indeed in Europe’s long-term interest to help create and sustain political, social and economic stability in the MENA region. Such conclusions are not novel.
That was the original intention of the Barcelona process. Under that initiative, the EU spends no less than 2 billion euros annually to support developmental programs in various countries in the Southern Mediterranean.
But the failure of the Middle East peace process and Europe’s political marginalization in the MENA region as a result of America’s growing military influence have undercut the EU’s ability to act beyond the economic sphere. Its initiatives to press MENA countries to introduce genuine political reforms and adhere to human rights treaties have not been successful. Europe’s influence on the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations has been limited. And yet it is Europe that has to grapple with regional instability so close to its borders. And then there is Turkey’s nagging pressure to join the EU.
A new Club Med would have to set up higher goals, but it would need to be established on solid grounds. Europe today is a nation with functioning legal, economic and social structures. The southern partners are divided and most have structural and endemic problems that include poverty and unemployment, misappropriation of wealth and resources, political and social challenges. This will not be an egalitarian club of nations and leaders, nor will it be an equitable partnership.
The new partnership should not end up as a grand scheme to disguise donations to poorer countries, nor should it become a mantle to underline Europe’s, particularly France’s, leadership of the Mediterranean basin. And when Slovenia’s Prime Minister Janez Jansa says that the objective of the Union is not to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, red flags should appear.
A partnership of any kind should reflect the aspirations and goals of those willing to undertake it. If the crux of Middle Eastern instability is not addressed, then, what good will this union be? If Europe wants to take the lead in this part of the world, it would have to live by its principles and laws.
It cannot provide false promises to the people of the MENA region and then wonder why its goals and objectives are not working.
The Mediterranean basin can indeed become a lake of peace and stability, where the people of the north can help their neighbors in the south move away from the culture of fear, terror, disparity and desperation. Europe remains the closest continent to the people of the MENA region and it is to that destination that millions of our sons and daughters risk their lives every day to travel in search of a better future. The fundamental problems in our part of the world have not changed much since Barcelona and before.
It is the continent of Europe that has not been consistent in its approach to this region, and it is this that holds the key to the success or failure of new offers for partnership.
— Osama Al Sharif is a veteran journalist and commentator based in Jordan.
