The commentators have got it right. Between the conciliatory and optimistic declarations of Tony Blair and José Luis Zapatero, who spoke of the success of the euro-Mediterranean Summit in Barcelona, or even a "leap of quality in the right direction", and the unkind words of the commentators who spoke of a semi-failure, there is no doubt in my mind: it is the latter who are right (see, amongst other things, the vast and balanced summary published in our bulletin 9077). Before the summit, I tried to put forward a moderately optimistic view of the possible results, whilst stressing the vital conditions for a genuine relaunch of the partnership (see this column in bulletins 9073 and 9074). In fact: a) the tangible results were slender, and fell a long way short of what was hoped for; b) the political climate was decidedly cold, at times even downright untrusting, and lacking in spirit, particularly on the part of the countries of the southern shore.
The factual data are well known: only two heads of State from the Mediterranean third countries took part in the work; the Summit was unable to agree on a joint final declaration, which had to be replaced by a declaration by President Tony Blair. I will not dwell any further on this. Instead, I will try to analyse the reasons for this semi-failure, and the nature of the fundamental disagreements.
1. Political mistrust. I can see three essential reasons for this, even though they have only been partly owned up to, in the highly unpleasant atmosphere which surrounded the work. The first refers to the fact that it was absolutely impossible to reach a compromise on the very notion of terrorism, which, in the view of the EU, covers all acts of violence perpetrated against targets other than Armed Forces, whereas some of the Arab countries wanted to maintain a distinction between terrorism and the "right to resistance" against a foreign occupation, whatever methods used. The second reason is the EU's insistence on including explicit references to reform in the texts (for example, the independence of justice systems) and the inclusion of civil society in national governance in the various countries. However, the political authorities of many of the Arab countries mistrust the growing power of civil society, and feel that in any case, the responsibilities of civil society and reform are questions which are internal to each country, and cannot be imposed by the EU.
2. Confusion about the "neighbourhood policy" of the EU. The countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean have no opposition in principle to this policy launched by the European Commission, but they get the feeling that the result of this will be to sound the death knell for a specific EU policy towards the Mediterranean region. This fear was put into words by Sami Naïr, of the Université de Paris-VIII (our translation): "The Barcelona strategy is condemned to vanish within the next three years, in the name of a new so-called "neighbourhood" approach, in which Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, and other countries, will be associated with Europe on the same footing as... Moldova, Ukraine and Russia!" No government has said anything quite so brusque, but several are voicing doubts and mistrust, and want to have this clarified before they commit themselves.
3. Deep divisions between the countries of the southern shore on the economic objectives. The texts approved in Barcelona naively talk of the "creation of a free-trade zone by 2010", whereas: a) no concrete procedure has been planned for the liberalisation of trade between the Mediterranean third countries themselves, as though it were possible for a free-trade zone to exist whilst maintaining customs duty and other trade barriers between some 10 of the participating countries; b) Morocco has made no bones about its preference for bilateral trade links with the EU; c) Algeria has stated that is opposed to the very notion of free trade. The "economic programme" plank of the partnership for the next five years makes depressing reading: nothing concrete, no firm commitment, just a list of objectives which stand no chance of being achieved, relating to investments, research and innovation, the liberalisation of services (non-binding and on a voluntary basis!), guaranteed access to studies for all, with equality between boys and girls, and so on. All of this in five years! For agriculture, the opening of negotiations is planned "as soon as possible" on all aspects (see this column in bulletin 9073).
4. Feeble commitments on the fight against terrorism and migration control. This is the first time that an anti-terrorism code has been subscribed to by Arab countries and Israel together, Tony Blair emphasised. This is certainly true, but the commitments it contains are somewhat modest. And the text on controls on illegal migration doesn't go very far at all, adding almost nothing to what is already in place.
On this basis, a common Euro-Mediterranean economic, commercial space of liberty, security and justice is just so much hot air. The objectives need to be revised. I will return to this tomorrow.
(F.R.)