Brussels, 13/09/2006 (Agence Europe) - The committee on international trade at the European Parliament held a hearing on 12 September on trade prospects in the Euro-Mediterranean area with a view to a report to be finalised at the end of 2006 for submission to the plenary of January 2007. The basic outcome was doubts over how to proceed, and the deadline of 2010 for the implementation of a free-trade area was also deemed doubtful, and even “utopian”, according to Tokia Saïfi (PPE-DE, France). The participants all stressed the need to assess the economic, social and environmental impact. “A free-trade area first warrants political consideration in a context which is politically unstable and institutionally unclear following the failure of the Barcelona EuroMed Summit”, said the rapporteur, Kader Arif (PSE, France).
The Algerian ambassador Halim Bentallah distanced himself slightly from an approach consisting of completing the Barcelona process, or replacing it with a “neighbourhood policy” which, in his view, “tends to change to original objectives” of the Barcelona process. He nonetheless agrees that the context has “changed considerably” since November 1995, with the impact of enlargement adding to the “institutional weakness” of the EuroMed process, in turn adding to the “initial shortcomings” in the free-trade project, which does not take account of different sectors such as services and agriculture, nor of the range of different situations in each country. Investments, he says, have not benefited from the “signal sent out” by the Barcelona declaration, quickly counterbalanced by the effects of enlargement, which proved to be more attractive. But the main shortcoming remains in his eyes the maintenance of restrictions on the free movement of people. In any case, Algeria “is not a stakeholder” in the neighbourhood policy, and would prefer efforts to centre on the implementation oft he association agreement. The Egyptian ambassador Mahmoud Karem was less critical, highlighting the encouraging results in the Mediterranean area (generally strong growth, improved macro-economic balance). He underscored the need for improved economic accompaniment for peace-keeping efforts in the region and wanted to see increased emphasis on the social and human demands of the process. The President of the session Peter Stastny (PPE-DE, Slovakia) also said that achievements “unfortunately risk being insufficient to fulfil the objectives” of the Barcelona process, and that the Parliament must get more involved in order to give clearer guidelines.
The experts involved also underlined the risks inherent in the approach adopted. But the Vice-President of the EIB, Philippe de Fontaine Vive, was more optimistic and concentrated on the dynamic role played by the Bank through its FEMIP instrument for the development of enterprises in the Mediterranean, and quoted figures demonstrating the improvements in the Mediterranean economy: 4% growth in the region, but 7% if you include Turkey. However, the wealth of the region overall is still weak (3.5% of European wealth if Turkey is included). The development of trade and associated infrastructures (particularly transport and gas networks) should, in his view, enable the current deficiencies to be reduced.
The representative from the NGO ENDA, Ibrahim Magdi, particularly emphasised the risks inherent in agriculture where “the growth of imports from the EU (will be) to the detriment of local production”: in his view, the issue “should not be to gain market share in the short term, but rather to encourage neighbours' development” and to counter negative social consequences in an agricultural sector where the weakness is structural.
In the view of Dorothée Schmid of Ifri, it is probably because Europe lacks the political means that it has made free-trade the heart of its relations with the Mediterranean: the “faith in a liberal project” seems to her to fit more with a “system shaped to the current tastes of the American administration” than with the interests of the region, and “it is uncertain whether the neighbourhood policy offers any new solutions”. She also observes a “return to a bilateral dimension” in relations between the two sides.
Professor Erwann Lannon, from the College of Europe, highlighted the weakness of the reforms in the countries of the South and of dialogue with civil society and said he was “shocked” by the low percentage (10%) of MEDA resources devoted to regional development. He also notes a “demediterranisation”, a marginalisation of relations between the two sides, and points to the "ambiguousness" of the integration prospects of these countries into the European internal market, which is nonetheless one of the main objectives of the neighbourhood policy.
Ignacio Garcia from the Commission's DG Trade maintained that impact assessments have been carried out and that the Commission was still listening to its partners. Kader Arif stated his desire to draw up a report to reflect all of the doubts and advantages attached to this EuroMediterranean policy, the prospects for which do not seem to be clear to all the partners.