regards-citoyens

General Introduction

French President Sarkozy's agenda to promote a Mediterranean Union has triggered a lively debate in the European Union and among the Southern Mediterranean EU partners. This debate suggests that France's initial proposal will still see change and evolution.

In fact, since the end of the Cold War, the initiatives for the Mediterranean have been numerous but none has reached its objectives so far. It is worth assessing the value of the Mediterranean Union proposal and examining the reactions it provoked in key countries. We have selected several of them. On the European side, Southern European countries (other than France) and Germany seem particularly concerned. Of the nonmembers, we have decided, on the one hand, to concentrate on Tunisia and its North African neighbors, and on the other, on Israel. The various EC, and later on, EU initiatives, such as the Global Mediterranean Policy of 1972, the Renovated Mediterranean Policy of 1990, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership within the framework of the Barcelona Process in 1995, and the New European Neighborhood Policy of 2003, have sought to make the Mediterranean region an area of peace, stability and prosperity. All these policies were supposed to promote the stabilization of the region through the virtues of free trade. More recently, Europe requested its Mediterranean partners to adhere to its system of values, particularly to democracy and the rule of law; in exchange for which Europe proposed to share the prosperity of its liberal economy. It also promised to those countries that most rapidly implemented the new Neighborhood policy that they could benefit, at least partly, from the "four liberties". However, these diverse propositions have convinced neither the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, which were reluctant to undertake rapid political and social change (except the singular case of Israel), nor the European countries that did not tend to boost direct investments and technological transfers. Furthermore, the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict has complicated attempts at cooperation, finally leading the process of partnership towards a political deadlock.

Can the project of a "Mediterranean Union", as initially proposed by the then candidate to the Presidency of France, Nicolas Sarkozy (later to become actual President), during his electoral campaign in early 2007, resolve these problems or overcome these obstacles ?

This was in fact the question initially raised by EuroMeSCo and non-EuroMeSCo experts alike in the spring of 2007 when the project was first publicized.

It quickly emerged that many agreed that the Barcelona Process had not been a big success, although by far not the total failure that those in charge of the project in France were boldly stating. The EMP had indeed failed to diminish the economic gap between the North and the South of the Mediterranean. However, it also appeared that there was no consensus whatsoever about the reasons for these results. The French involved in the Mediterranean Union blamed the failure by and large on the lack of "ownership" felt amongst the Mediterranean Partners of the Barcelona Process and on the exclusive focus directed towards trade and adjustment. This in turn, so the argument went, had the result of fostering "cold" rivalry and competition, rather than the sense of community easily achievable if there had been highly visible and specific cooperative ventures and projects. Indirectly, and without much fanfare, the French also intimated that within the EU only Southern European countries had shown interest in advancing the Mediterranean agenda, and therefore that there was a lack of motivation on the EU's side. For those Arab countries involved in the EMP, it was the aggravation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict following the failure of the Oslo Process that was the main culprit1. This was of course rejected by Israeli experts, who stressed that the EMP was not created to establish peace in the Middle East, nor to resolve open conflicts in the Mediterranean (be they between Algeria and Morocco, or between Cyprus and Turkey). Together with British, German and Scandinavian scholars, they stressed that the EMP was a North-South development through-trade program and that it had failed for two main reasons. First and foremost because the EU had excluded agricultural goods and labour-intensive services from the association agreements and because the cumulation of origin rules had taken a long time to be introduced; and secondly, because the Arab members of the EMP had failed to reform economically and politically2.

On the other hand, there was a strong consensus among experts that the timing chosen by France to launch this pet project was an appropriate one. It was high time for some serious stock-taking of a Process that was now 12 years old and languishing - all this when new centers of economic power are emerging elsewhere on the international scene, such as in Eastern (China) and South Asia (India), the Southern Cone (Brazil), and with the return of Russia as an energy power after 15 years of absence. There was also a consensus that the new President of France wanted to restore the latter's position of "primus inter pares" in the Mediterranean, and by the same token, balance this with his initial image of a President too sympathetic to the foreign policy and security views of the United States in the wider Middle East. In other words, it was an initiative around which all the political forces in France could be rallied.

In sum, it is extensively agreed that the idea behind the Mediterranean Union project is based on a triple diagnosis made by President Sarkozy: the marginalization of the Mediterranean in the world economy; the inadequacies of the EU's Mediterranean policy, and the erosion of France's role as a geopolitical actor in the Mediterranean.5. And all seem to agree that the main value of Sarkozy's proposal is that it has contributed towards renewing debate about the geopolitical importance of the Mediterranean region.

How did the idea evolve over the last 15 months ? In fact, it started out as a Union of the Mediterranean, or Mediterranean Union, only including the riparian countries and excluding the non-Mediterranean EU members. Then, in Rome, on December 20, 2007, the minisummit between the heads of state and governments of France, Italy and Spain adopted the "Appel de Rome",3 in which the initiative was turned into a Union for the Mediterranean (UFM), excluding the possibility of their membership, but making room for some form of participation of the Commission and, eventually, of non-Mediterranean EU countries eager to play a role in the area. Thereafter, at the March 3, 2008 meeting in Hanover between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Sarkozy, it was decided that the EU members would not be divided into Mediterranean and non-Mediterranean, nor given different roles with respect to the Union for the Mediterranean. "It will be", in the words of Chancellor Merkel, "a project of the 27 member states of the [European] Union".4

Finally, in the European Council of March 13-14, 2008 held in Brussels, the initiative (which the "Appel de Rome" had apparently construed as a Franco-Spanish-Italian demarche) was brought to the attention of the other EU members as a common Franco-German endeavour, in view of the final decisions on content and shape that are to be taken in the Euro-Med summit that France will hold in Paris on July13-14, 2008. Although the EU members took good note of the Franco-German initiative, it has not been officially approved.5 The Presidency Conclusions of the Brussels Council are very general and refer to the issue in extremely broad terms in a very brief annex, inviting "the Commission to present to the Council the necessary proposals for defining the modalities of what will be called ‘Barcelona Process  : Union for the Mediterranean' ".6

After this long sequence of events, the contours defining the relationship between the EU and the UfM have begun to emerge. Although the final result will only become clear when the July Paris summit is over, one can argue the following on the basis of what has unfolded so far :

(a) The UfM, as a union of sovereign states, cannot be an organic part of the EU. While the EMP is an EU policy to which the Southern Mediterranean Partners are closely associated, an inter-state UfM will remain outside the EU ambition ;

(b) Apparently, the Brussels Council conceived of a way to enlarge the Barcelona Process so as to include the UfM under its umbrella, in addition to the EMP. In truth, so far the Barcelona Process has been technically synonymous with the EMP, although in a broad and discursive sense other processes, such as the 5 + 5 Group, the Forum for the Mediterranean
and the Agadir Pact, could also be included within it. The March13-14, 2008 Brussels Council could turn out to be a historic meeting, in that it has established the Barcelona Process as a diplomatic constellation of various different Euro-Mediterranean processes (the EMP, the UfM, the 5 + 5, etc.) that are in some way related to one another - together forming a kind of "greater" Barcelona Process ;

(c) The EMP and the UfM will remain two distinctive endeavours, each with its own internal organisation. The majority of the same countries will most probably participate in the UfM, as well as the EMP, albeit in different capacities and roles. At the time of writing (mid-May 2008), it appears that on the Mediterranean side, it is not only the usual 10 countries that have been invited to participate in the UfM (i.e. Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey), but now also Albania, Libya, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Mauritania and Monaco - i.e. a total of 17 that do not belong to the EU, bringing the total of prospective members up to 44. But membership in the EMP and UfM might become increasingly overlapped, seeing as there are now emerging some parallel proposals to enlarge the current membership of the EMP.
In the Brussels Council, the Commission was mandated by EU members to provide suggestions on the "modalities" whereby the UfM can remain under the umbrella of the Barcelona Process, in addition to the EMP ; in other words, how the two entities can govern their reciprocal relations by implementing two different agendas with respect to the same objective (and how the EU will re-organise itself within the EMP framework) ;

(d) One should note that when the EU members gather in Paris, they (as well as the Southern Mediterranean partners) may agree, unanimously or not, upon setting up the UfM. If only part of the EU members agree, and the others nonetheless still accept the principle of the UfM as an EU action within the "greater" Barcelona Process, the result will be a reinforced cooperation. Indeed, were the UfM to constitute the source of a plurality of projects, it would appear more a cluster of reinforced cooperation actions, rather than a single action, or a kangaroo-like reinforced cooperation action. It may well happen that EU members that are not willing to be regular partners of the UfM, would nevertheless be willing to take part in one or more of its projects. No doubt, the EU will have to put its lawyers to work in order to make the UfM feasible as a reinforced cooperation and, more generally, to outline the right governance model for the new "greater" Barcelona constellation ;

(e) New flexibilities in external relations between member states and the Commission have developed in the past years: ways and means of sharing responsibilities have emerged, as well as greater flexibility in members states' options to participate in sub-regional cooperation schemes stretching across EU borders, as in the case of the Nordic Dimension and, to some extent, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation-BSEC. In its follow-up of the Brussels Council's request to set out proposals, with a view to including the UfM in the Barcelona Process, the Commission could make use of such flexibilities.7 This perspective of flexibility may however end up severely limited by the inherently rigid nature of an interstate union such as President Sarkozy wishes the UfM to be. The talks, which will take place between now and the July Paris summit, will obviously seek to strike a balance between flexibility and rigidity. As pointed out, the French UfM proposal shows an inclination towards evolution. It may well continue evolving.

(f ) There still remain many unknowns at the time of writing. In particular, and notwithstanding points (b) and (c) above, it is not yet clear whether the idea is to create a sort of "G-8 of the Mediterranean", as those French officials involved in negotiating a joint Declaration in July 2008 seem to have in mind and support; or whether the project will be organically related to the Barcelona Process and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. On the one hand, the agreements reached at the Brussels European Council seem to privilege the latter view. But on the other, the membership of the two processes is different, since 44 countries will be involved in the new UfM, more than the 39 involved in the EMP. It is also clear that this is not an EU-driven project as are the ENP and the EMP. The right of exclusive initiative given to the EU Commission, which is so typical both of the ENP and the EMP, is no longer there. Moreover, it is the new Council of the UfM (representing all the members of the Union, potentially numbering 44) that must decide every two years which projects are to be selected. Quite interestingly, the EU's Council of Ministers seems to take a backseat here.

(g) If one is guided by the record of the ECJ and the EP in similar ventures, it is not at all clear what their view might be about such a decision-making structure. Suffice here to highlight the pandemonium raised by the ECJ in the early 1990s, when suggestions were made by EFTA countries towards creating the European Economic Area to have a joint EFTAEC Court of Justice. A way out of the conundrum is to confine projects to areas that are not of the exclusive competence of the EU (first pillar). But then this would exclude any project dealing with trade and competition. Even for fields where there is at present shared competence between the EU and its Member States (e.g. in the domain of migration, trade in services, and agriculture), huge legal difficulties could be raised by the ECJ to the EU's Council of Ministers before any project in these domains are to be adopted by the UfM.

(h) At present, the new slogan being used by French negotiators to sell the project to the other 43 potential members of the UfM is to present it as "A projects' Union for a Union project" ("une union de projets pour un projet d'Union"). Nicolas Sarkozy has stressed that the private sector would (or should) take the lead in financing the projects, but that of course some financial public institutions would be called on to provide financial support and expertise (e.g. FEMIP). In passing, the project approach is nothing but new. This approach was tried during the Oslo Process when the so-called US-inspired MENA Business Conferences were organized in parallel in Casablanca, Amman and Doha. As we know, the idea amounted to nothing when the Oslo Process failed. Contrary to what President Sarkozy states, this is not the ECSC approach he so keenly mentions in his Press conferences. The latter, privileged by Jean Monnet, was anything but business-oriented. Jean Monnet believed in using strong supranational structures to bind sovereign countries together, thus preventing their bid for escape the moment they are confronted with a crisis. In turn, this would preclude that private firms fear for their investments. Nothing of the sort is present in Sarkozy's approach, nor in the MENA Conferences' approach.

(i) There is then also the myth whereby the ECSC, which was a sectorial organization, preserved peace between France and Germany through a process of irrevocable interdependence and habit-creating socialization. But this took place after Germany had been totally defeated by the Allies and had no possibility of returning to an independent path. What is more, NATO is known to have been created not only to keep the Soviets out, but also to keep the Germans down. Finally, as indicated above, supranational institutions such as the High Authority were set up to control the re-industrialization of Germany from above. This is not to say that the economic interdependence and socialization brought about by the ECSC did not play a role in maintaining peace and stability, but all those elements just mentioned were also crucial. And it is these sorts of conditions that do not prevail in the Mediterranean, nor in Middle East.

(j) Prospective organizational and logistical hitches may revolve around the following questions : How will Mediterranean non-EU member countries choose their co-president ? If no automatic rotation is instituted, will this not mean that the same countries (i.e. the least controversial) will always be chosen? Who will financially support a Secretariat of between 20 to 30 persons? Even if the Secretariat is composed of seconded officials from the Member States or from the Commission, as Commission experts expect, various other expenditures would remain to be covered. Furthermore, if a sense of "ownership" is so important, how is this possible without financial contributions from those Mediterranean countries involved in projects ? If the Secretariat is to be based in an Arab country, such as Tunisia (as has been rumoured), with no peace agreement having been signed with Israel, how can the former guarantee the well-being and security of the Israeli members in the Secretariat ?

Finally, if the financial envelope devoted to the different EU Mediterranean agendas is not expected to be dramatically increased, what kind of reaction can be expected from those Mediterranean countries that have regularly benefited from MEDA, EMPI and FEMIP funds and are now being told that part of these sources of finance will be decreased in order to make room for possible regional projects, which on top of this, might not involve the country in question ?

After this short introduction, which has tried to explain the options made available and the problems still unresolved, this Report will now try to provide an overview of the different views existing in the main zones of the Euro-Med area. We will start with the views of some European countries, to then be followed by the perspectives developing in the Southern Rim of the Mediterranean.

Because the observer's origin and the location from which he writes very much colours his views, we have opted to first have each author draw his own conclusions and recommendations.

Then, in a short section that includes some final remarks, we have summed up some policy suggestions around which emerged broad consensus regarding their soundness.
But let us now get started ... Union-f-Med--Euromesco.pdf

1 Denis Bauchard, L'Union Méditerranéenne : un défi européen, Politique étrangère, No.1, 2008, pp.51-64.

2 Michael Emerson, Making Sense of Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean, CEPS Policy Brief, No.155, March 7 2008.

3 "Appel de Rome pour l'Union pour la Méditerranée de la France, l'Italie et l'Espagne", December 20, 2007 ; in the web site of the Italian Presidency of the Council of Ministers.

4 From the French text of the "Conférence de presse conjointe de Mme Angela Merkel, Chancelier de la République Fédérale d'Allemagne et de M. Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République", on the web site of the French Republic Presidency.

5 During the press conference on the night of March 13, President Sarkozy took it for granted "la decision de transformer le processus de Barcelone en Union pour la Méditerranée ... sur la base du papier franco-allemand" ; however the European Council's Presidency Conclusions do not corroborate his view. See "Conférence de presse de M. Nicolas Sarkozy, Président de la République, lors du Conseil Européen de Bruxelles, Jeudi 13 mars 2008 » on the French Repuclic
Presidency web site.

6 "Statement on ‘Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean' " in the Annex 1 to the Presidency Conclusions of the Brussels European Council 13-14 March 2008, on the web site of the EU Presidency.

7 Michael Emerson, "Making Sense of Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean", CEPS Policy Brief No. 155, March 2008.