The opinion of a few key players in relations between the EU and the non-EU Mediterranean countries represents a useful and instructive complement to the double analysis of the situation published in this column at the start of the week (EUROPE 10651 and 10652).
France underlines its freedom of judgment. Laurent Fabius, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, took part in a colloquium in Paris on The Arab world in the age of revolutions. In his short speech he affirmed French support for the progress of the “democratic, economic and societal transitions… It is up to each of these societies to find its way, and nothing can replace that. We reject all paternalism.” However, he added: “France will preserve its freedom of judgment and will express this if and when it deems necessary.” A few main principles are “intangible: fair trials, freedom of opinion, women's rights and minority rights”. And he went on: “We will pay particular attention to the freedom of women. The Arab world must give them their full place.” He continued that his country will address “societies and not only governments. The people to whom we speak will also be democratic movements, rights defence associations and movements for education and culture.”
Fabius is in favour of “a sort of big Mediterranean grouping” and he went on: “The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) started off with a generous but clumsy ambition. It was not realistic to want to include the two shores of the Mediterranean in a single rigid grouping, while pretending to carry on regardless of the divergences, differences and even conflicts which may exist on the two shores. The UfM's ambition did not manage to survive the first problems it met. … Rather than re-opening the institutional dossier, I believe in the method of cooperation by variable geometry, which is able to regroup the countries which so want for well-defined projects. We need formats which are differentiated in order to respond to the diversity of the situations and implement concrete cooperation without delay”.
Algeria's national ambitions. The article by Mourad Medelci, the Algerian minister of foreign affairs, which was published in Le Monde, shows that a country from the southern shore of the Mediterranean can pursue purely national objectives and projects while defending the principle of variable geometry in its relations with Europe. He highlighted that the dismantling of tariffs has been negotiated on a bilateral level and he added that the main importance lies in energy cooperation - with the EU on one side and Algeria on the other.
His country is the top supplier of gas to European countries but it has “other ambitions: to move towards new types of energy”. The minister refers to solar energy with the objective of an agreement which would not be exclusively commercial but involve true cooperation “allowing the Algerians to participate in the distribution of their products in Europe. … We need to find synergies, a joint understanding of each other's interests; and guarantees, of course.”
Algeria is not like other countries in the region - its regime is based on a single party, it has enormous financial reserves, its authorities do not hide their hostility to the Arab Spring which they see as “the bearer of anarchy and disorder”.
A writer's very strong reaction. Tahar Ben Jelloun, a Moroccan writer who is well known in Europe, has been particularly strong in his position published in different European newspapers. In his opinion, the Arab Spring and similar movements have been absorbed by “Islamists who did not promote it, who did not take part in the demonstrations where the deaths, and the injuries were numerous. The Arab Spring thus announces a long Islamist season which could last for years. … The old dictators have been replaced by regimes which have the same character. … What gives hope is that alongside the Islamists who attack, forbid and moralise there exists a civil society, driven mainly by women who have resisted the new type of fascism that infects people's spirits and sends progress backwards”.
Europe accused. Amnesty International has criticised the “discrimination” towards Arabs, of which the EU is guilty on its home territory - young girls prevented from going to school if they wear a veil, believers who pray in the streets because of a lack of places of worship, refusal to give special timetables to workers during Ramadan. Amnesty acknowledges that protective laws exist, but they are not always adhered to.
I believe Amnesty International is partly right and that it will doubtless publish a similar report concerning freedom of worship for Christians in the Arab world. (FR/transl.fl)