Exit the regional free-trade zone. After the semi-failure of the Barcelona Summit (see this column yesterday), what survives in the Euro-Mediterranean plan for a common economic and commercial zone and a common area of liberty, security and justice? Not much, in my view. On the free trade zone, I wonder, having read various stances, whether both sides ever understood what it really meant. This is how the project was described by Professor Sami Naïr, of the Université Paris-VIII (our translation): "a strictly commercial policy was set in place which, in exchange for financial transfers and the promise of taking part in a free-trade zone by 2010, called for the dismantling of customs barriers to the South and the opening up of markets to European products". But of course; that is what free trade is: the removal of customs barriers on both sides (staggering the timetable in favour of the weaker party), and the mutual opening up of markets. It's not just international trade rules which say this, but the grammar, the meaning of the words. This project is of no interest to the countries of the southern shore of the Mediterranean! I've always felt this to be the case, particularly as the need to liberalise trade between the Mediterranean third countries themselves at the same time was never really taken seriously into consideration, either on the European side or on the other, and without this there can be no regional free-trade zone. We now learn that Morocco would prefer a bilateral agreement for its trade with the EU, and that Algeria doesn't want any free trade at all. This means that the situation is clear: exit the free trade zone covering the whole of the region by 2010.
Broken down economic area. So what about the common economic area? This presupposes many achievements and much harmonisation which the EU itself has not yet succeeded in completely bringing into being (see the liberalisation of services, the common energy market, and many more). In the five-year programme approved in Barcelona, the liberalisation of services is indicated as non-binding and entirely voluntary. And the unified electricity market is cited as a reminder (this does not exist even in the EU). According to the stances I have been made aware of, in the field of economics, the countries of the southern Mediterranean are, in fact, calling for three things: improved access to the European market for their agricultural products; as much funding is possible under the Community budget and from the EIB; a rapid increase of private European finance.
Here's how the situation stands on these three aspects. On agriculture, the EU is proposing to open negotiations to liberalise trade (with a few exceptions), but as part of an overall agreement also covering common sanitary and environmental standards, the respect for protected denominations, et cetera. The EU is prepared to negotiate swiftly, on a country-by-country basis; we are waiting for answers from the other side, and in Barcelona, they did no more than to take note of the offer. On funding, Brussels sources point out that billions of euros have already been spent: 8.8 billion EUR since 1995 for the Meda 1 and Meda 2 programmes, and 11.2 billion EUR loaned by the EIB via Femip. During this current year, Morocco was already received 135 million EUR in donations, the Palestinian territories have had 121 million, Tunisia 118 million, Egypt 110 million, Jordan 58 million, Algeria 40 million, Lebanon 27 million, and Syria 22. It is not much, by head of population and compared to other regions? This may be true, but the most important thing has nothing to do with the figures, it is how the money is used, it is the end result of all this funding. And from this point of view, the assessments are not brilliant. In various of the above-mentioned countries, inefficiency and corruption have, in some cases, eaten chunks out of this money. As for private investments, the only way to attract this is to create conditions which provide incentives for the capital to start flooding in. For the time being, the Mediterranean region attracts somewhere in the region of just 1% of European external investments. The parcelling-up of the markets is the main cause of this. The market of one single country is not attractive, because it is too limited. No industrial producer is going to invest large sums for a market of a few million, or a few tens of millions, of consumers. Until there is a single market in the South, the investments will not be forthcoming.
The distancing of political ambitions. In this column (bulletin 9074), I sketched out the request of the European Parliament concerning human rights, democratisation, equal rights for women, ending conflicts between the Mediterranean third countries, condemning all acts of terrorism, the use of a "suspension clause" on the association agreements for any infringements of democratic liberties. Our readers will receive the full text of the Barcelona results (EUROPE/Documents series); this will allow them to see just how much distance separates the requests of the EP from what the Mediterranean third countries will agree to. At regional level, there is room for a decent amount of cooperation, but not yet for a common area of liberty, security and justice.
(FR)