Brussels, 03/04/2012 (Agence Europe) - The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is “more useful than ever”, said the spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry when answering press questions on 30 March relating to the future of the institution which, as generally acknowledged, has not yet come up with the hoped-for results. With France's presidential campaign in full swing, national media often cite this French initiative as one of the negative end-results of the incumbent president, Nicolas Sarkozy. This is mainly due to the cost of the UfM, which is deemed excessive - €16.6 million for the launch summit alone, according to the French Court of Auditors. And then there is the opposition that it has caused between France and Germany and also the European institutions.
French media also underline the political failings of the players put in place by President Sarkozy. He had made the president of Egypt, Mubarak; the president of Tunisia, Ben Ali; and the president of Syria, Bashar al-Assad, his main partners in a dialogue into which he had not managed to draw his ally at the time, Colonel Gaddafi, whom he wanted to give a pivotal role in the policy suffering from a lack of funding to accomplish its projects.
However, after over three years of French co-presidency of the UfM, Paris affirms that the UfM remains the only true response to the Arab Spring, and that it was even premonitory. The French spokesman asserted: “We believe that what is happening in the context of the Arab Springs is a good reason for pushing the project still further forward”, the French spokesman said. In his view, France is thus calling for the “continuation, deepening and development of a collective exercise of responsibility around one of the cradles of humanity”. Citing his minister, he underlined the relevance of the UfM project, saying it is now more necessary for all than ever before. He went on to add: “It would be so easy not to do anything and to leave things as they are, except that we live in a world that is moving fast. It has moved very fast over the past year in the southern Mediterranean and we must adjust to this. (…) Obviously not doing anything is the position that presents the most advantages. But that is not how France sees the world or the way that French diplomacy operates in the world. And so, the Union of the Mediterranean is being reactivated.”
The diplomat highlighted the fact that, over the past year, the UfM secretariat general in Barcelona has been reinforced. France has passed the co-presidency baton over to the EU, but this “does not mean that France is being effaced - quite the contrary”, he said. In his view, such development is the “result of work carried out with Catherine Ashton and all our European partners so that there is the whole of Europe at the UfM's helm”. France has not lost all hope of evolution “at the level of the co-presidency on the southern side” as “quickly as possible”, he said.
Concrete projects. Among the achievements of the UfM, France highlights the launch of “concrete projects” for which the sources of funding have not, however, been announced. The spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry spoke of a “desalination plant in Gaza, meetings on women's rights in the countries concerned, university exchange projects, development cooperation projects between civil societies of the countries taking part”, as well as projects for transferring electricity and exchanging environmental issues. There is not enough talk of such projects, he bemoaned, before going on to stress: “All this is important because we are going to pass on this Mediterranean to following generations and it is our responsibility to leave it in a decent state. That is why we also believe in the UfM project. Behind all that, there is a need for political will and we believe that that political will is expressed in the north through European Union involvement, and must find an echo with growing involvement of the southern countries.” He also called on the members of the UfM to make a greater effort to shoulder responsibility, so that things do not come to a halt on any individual situation. The Union for the Mediterranean must be the result of a “strong dynamic for collective cooperation between all the countries that surround the Mediterranean Sea”, he said. (FB/transl.jl)