Brussels, 06/12/2001 (Agence Europe) - Invited to a discussion on the "dialogue of civilisations" with members of the European Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, Crown Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan asserted "The urgent need today is not so much to analyse, rationalise or control different lifeworlds, but rather to befriend people in their lived contexts all over the world". "Unfortunately", he added, "the criminal attacks of September 11th and the war in Afghanistan cast their shadow on dialogue between civilisations". The Crown Prince welcomed the EU attitude and the fact that the Foreign Ministers of the countries involved in the Barcelona Process at a meeting "held last month in Brussels formally rejected the equating of terrorism with the Arab and Muslim world". As far as the Prince was concerned, the growth in importance of religious issues is universal and "is considered as part of the crisis of modernity". Against this background, he called for a consolidation of the EuroMed dialogue and recommended changing the order in which the different areas will be considered, putting the section on "Social, Cultural and Human Issues" first rather than third: Barcelona "is an implicit recognition that in retrospect, Chapter III of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership should have been Chapter I". He called in addition for permanent Euro-Arab dialogue.
The discussions tended to focus on current events, where Prince Hassan made cautious statements along the lines that Israel's security before a peace settlement is reached is a matter of the chicken and the egg. He was not very optimistic about how events were likely to unfold, wondering whether one was not laying the basis for events in the region that would cause "horror", and calling on the EU to have a global political strategy for the region. He welcomed the German Social Democrat MEP, Jannis Sakellariou's suggestion, to be put before the Arab League, of lunching an in-depth dialogue between civilisations. The MEP is unhappy that all calls for dialogue were coming from the northern shores of the Mediterranean.