On Tuesday 15 December, MEPs gave a mixed assessment of the Barcelona Process, which was launched 25 years ago, and called for it to be reinvigorated.
“When the Barcelona Process was launched, the European Union set ambitious objectives: the Rule of law, human rights, the fight against organised crime and terrorism, economic and social development and the fight against youth unemployment. Twenty-five years later, we are far from having achieved the objectives and we are facing new challenges”, summed up José Ramón Bauzá Díaz (Renew Europe, Spain).
For his compatriot Carles Puigdemont (not listed), the Mediterranean is a “mass grave” where the hopes of thousands of human beings are lost and not the reference of shared peace, stability and prosperity promised at the time.
Beyond criticism, MEPs set out the areas that should be at the heart of the partnership between the EU and its southern neighbourhood countries. According to Salima Yenbou (Greens/EFA, France), we need a policy that lives up to the aspirations and challenges, a “big plan with social, cultural, environmental and values at its heart, a plan that would target young people (...) and make the Mediterranean Sea a sea of exchanges and hopes rather than a graveyard for migrants”.
Tonino Picula (S&D, Croatia) called for solutions to turn traditional and new challenges into opportunities for both sides of the Mediterranean.
“We need to relaunch the idea of a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area and the great Barcelona objective of modernising the economy and society”, added Francisco José Millán Mon (EPP, Spain), hoping that the new European strategy, scheduled for spring 2021, will take account of the region’s stability and prosperity.
While Antonio López-Istúriz White (EPP, Spain) said that the fight against terrorism, the economic situation and migration should be the subject of in-depth EU scrutiny, Anna Bonfrisco (Identity and Democracy, Italy) said that economic governance should be strengthened, private investors attracted and human dignity highlighted. For the Greens/EFA group, the Spanish MEP Jordi Solé said there could be no stability without social progress and political openness. And Frenchman Mounir Satouri, for his part, called for a “green, redistributive and inclusive” economy.
Nathalie Loiseau (Renew Europe, France) highlighted the importance of exchanges between civil societies. “Whether we are from the North or the South, we not only share a common history, but also a common destiny”, she said.
Admittedly, acknowledged the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, “the results are slim, (but) there is a lot of willingness to commit, because the needs are great”. “The European Parliament, the Commission and the EU Council must join forces to make the Mediterranean a sea of common development, democracy and economic prosperity”, he explained. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)