An eloquent hearing. It was enough just to expand the debate beyond official circles for a number of elements of truth on prospects for EU relations with countries of the southern Mediterranean to emerge in full. We all know the official spiel: a free trade zone up to 2010, a common stability and progress zone and so on and so forth. I'd like to invite those who might be interested to read the report in our EUROPE 9264 publication from the hearing organised on 12 September by the European Parliament's international trade committee: a number of ambassadors from the Mediterranean countries in question, as well as representatives from NGOs (Non-governmental Organisations) active on the ground, university lecturers and other witnesses presented a very different picture from the official version. Even MEPs who spoke did so in a less conventional and less rhetorical way in relation to what we too often hear in plenary sessions.
Failure of the free trade project. The real picture is as follows. The free trade zone up to 2010 is a delusion. It presupposes getting rid of trade barriers between all participating countries: moreover, countries from the southern Mediterranean currently impose an endless string of restrictions between themselves. Libya is ostensibly distancing itself from the project. Algeria is not hesitating to officially reject it because it does not correspond to its interests or objectives; it is also rejecting “neighbourhood policy” and is not supporting the bilateral association agreement. Other countries are active in working towards a partial freeing up of trade among themselves but just in small groups. Nothing resembles the overall project. What the southern Mediterranean countries are asking Europe, is for it to open up its borders to its products, especially its farming produce, on a bilateral basis. However, the reciprocity the EU is demanding (while accepting a differentiation of timetables to do so) would be nothing but detrimental: their small-scale industry has been transformed into a small trade in imported goods (often Chinese if the truth be known) and farmers would be unable to compete with their European counterparts (and even less so with their global competitors). A vast free trade zone covering the whole of the region has no chance of seeing the light of day in the foreseeable future.
Partnership on hold. The situation is even more gloomy as far as the big ambitions of the Barcelona Process is concerned, which should have led to a three pillar partnership: economic, politic and cultural. Private investment is not taking off (how can European entrepreneurs be expected to invest in countries wedded to their national markets and who don't try and create a single attractive market?) Shortcomings involving freedom and democracy are consistently denounced by MEPs and NGOs; the project for a “charter for peace and stability in the Mediterranean” was abandoned a long time ago; the dialogue of cultures remains a surface affair between a few distinguished intellectuals from the two sides and it will remain there as long as certain religious authorities and the Muslim masses react in a way that is totally inadmissible, from a European point of view, in episodes involving the “Danish cartoons” and the Pope's theological speech (who was speaking on behalf of the Church and its believers and has nothing to do with the political authorities of EU countries). There have been several attempts to evaluate our common cultural heritage (e.g. Saint Augustine in Algeria) but who's even noticed? A few bilateral results between the EU and one or other of the Mediterranean countries are possible but the common Euro-Mediterranean area of freedom, security and justice can continue to be cited in parliamentarary resolutions and in the speeches of politicians without any chance at all of becoming a reality as long as religious differences are experienced as conflicts and attacks and threats of destruction continue. I don't know what is worse - the attitude of some fanatical Islamisists or the syrupy cowardice of some European figures and authorities?
Reasons for hope. Is there therefore no positive element, no light at all at the end of the tunnel? This is not my opinion. I am astonished by the courage of the many Muslim intellectuals who defend freedom of thought and the number of journalists who fight for freedom of expression and criticism. I admire even more so the determination of the women who are fighting for their rights and dignity. In some southern Mediterranean countries, the results achieved in certain quarters, despite the circumstances, are extraordinary. There are also a number of authorities that encourage these efforts. This is why hope for the whole of the Euro-Mediterranean to become one day a common and genuine area of peace, stability, progress, freedom and justice should not be abandoned.
(FR)