Brussels, 17/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - Serge Telle, ambassador, inter-ministerial delegate for the Mediterranean in France and one of the original designers of the Union for the Mediterranean, has said that, “part of Europe's future is also being played out in the Mediterranean rim”. He made this statement in the OrientXXI journal published on Friday 14 November in which he also criticises the “perilous short sightedness” in Europe with regard to this theme.
Serge Telle poses the question of “who has been mentioning these challenges in Europe, despite the fact that they directly affect us? He affirms that despite the concentration of challenges in the southern Mediterranean “continually hammered home by the media (immigration, wars, radical Islam), there are also fantastic opportunities that will help us build a common destiny on the two banks of the 'inland sea'”.
“Who is concerned about the southern bank of the Mediterranean, although we are aware that it is here that all the challenges of this century are concentrated, as it always has been here throughout history, condensed into the world's biggest problems? These problems involve the environment and the need to protect this rich and fragile sea; development; intercultural dialogue; energy and peace”. He pointed out that it is in this context that “our future is being played out. We have, however, always found it difficult to assume responsibility for this situation” and this particularly applies to, “the crises affecting this area and which we believe we can protect ourselves from by refusing to see that our destinies are inextricably linked”.
He added that “seen from Europe, the Mediterranean area appears to be reduced to the sum total of these crises” and “seen from the South” the European area, “can apparently be summed up by increasingly aggressive levels of tension, obsessive fears and a dangerous focusing on a past that has now become mythified. The population has doubts about Europe's ability to recover sustainable growth and overcome the problems of debt, endemic unemployment and obsessions with identity”. The Mediterranean is “the victim of this short sightedness, which is preventing us from seeing that our future is a little further than Berlin and slightly beyond the next budgetary deadlines”. (FB)