Brussels 20/02/2013 (agence EUROPE) - The EU risks being supplanted in the Mediterranean area by China and other emerging countries due to its eroded credibility, warns Pierre Verluise, Director of Research at IRIS and a lecturer in political geography at the Sorbonne. He is the founder of the geopolitical seminar on Europe at the Ecole de guerre.
The EU “shows willing as the world's largest provider of public development aid, far ahead of the United States, Japan and the emerging countries. However, EU aid remains hardly visible, almost incoherent and sometimes fairly ineffectual”, he said (our translation throughout). He explains this loss of credibility by the fact that “European aid is widely dispersed and thinly spread, (which) reduces its effectiveness”, he writes in an interview published by the electronic medium Atlantico.
In this interview, Verluise confirms the general sentiment, which we have already gathered from various partners of the European institution: apart from what is perceived as a permanent distancing from the countries of the South, in practice there is a “multiplication of budgetary lines and Community regulations, which make them difficult to be grasped, either by European citizens or by the beneficiary countries”. He points out that the “European Parliament and the European Court of Auditors have been scathing of this policy, even though it is essential in the relationship with the South”.
“Whereas the EU - rightly - intends to become more demanding regarding the use of European funds in the framework of public development aid… it finds itself on ground which is hotly contested by the 'new' players: the emerging countries, such as China and India. These players do not include democratic conditions in the development aid they provide, which makes them attractive to regimes which may be somewhat reluctant to face these concerns. Their lack of interest in the fight against corruption also makes “communication” easier. And lastly, their companies' tenders are cheaper than those of European companies”.
He was critical of the UfM (Union for the Mediterranean), which “seems to have vanished into the blue”. He is referring to the difficult context in which its activities are being deployed (Israel-Palestine, Syria, etc), whilst stressing the interest in the sectorial policies. However, Verluise argues, its action is being carried out in “the greatest indifference”. “However, as the situations from the Sahara to the Sahel show, the northern shore of the Mediterranean must not - be it only for reasons of safety - create deadlock over the South”.
He is far from alone in this view. Several of our sources add to this picture the risk of an increasingly confused image of the EU and its actions in the South. One of the points on which criticism and apprehensions have focused relates to the double methodology practised by European diplomacy, the one chosen by the traditional services within the institutions and that practised by a special envoy to the region, Bernardino León, whose actions deserve, according to a number of commentators, to be better “synchronised” with those of the Commission, particularly in the stance to be taken towards the new “Islamist” governments. “Kissinger lamented the fact that there was no telephone number for Europe, whilst we find there are too many”, said a diplomat from a country of the southern shore. The same concerns of a scrambling of European actions can be seen within the institution itself, but it appears difficult to express this publicly. (FB/transl.fl)