Paris, 02/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - The “Forum in Paris”, which last weekend brought together eminent French and foreign personalities at the seat of UNESCO to discuss the theme of the “Union for the Mediterranean” (UFM), was the occasion of intense debate. This shows that there is a strong rallying against the idea to bury President Sarkozy's project or even simply against the fact that it was watered down at the last European Council. Out of this meeting came the feeling that a “founding act” was being produced for a “community of destiny”. There was a mixture of lyricism and factual reality with figures throughout a debate which did not rule out any aspect of political, geostrategic, economic, cultural, and social life, or the environment, energy, enterprises and financing - not forgetting sensitive themes such as immigration and, above all, the perception of an Islam that is increasingly Islamic. Rapprochement between the two sides of the Mediterranean is said to be inevitable, in the way it was inevitable that the Europe of 27 should come together. Just as coal and steel were the factors of integration for the Europe of yesterday, economic and human exchange, energy and renewable resources and the environment will serve as factors of integration for the UFM. The achievements of the Barcelona process will serve as a base on which to build the new construction, but the page would be turned.
The main recommendation is: look ahead and do not focus on what is happening behind us. Jacques Attali, former advisor to President Mitterrand, did not spare those present a reminder of the Mediterranean's tragic past history, more with a view to pointing out the way to be taken in the future than to tarnish an ardent ambition that is often presented as a founding “utopia”. “Vengeance is at the source of the Mediterranean organisation. Vengeance in the form of historical organisation, vengeance in the form of organisation of human relations”. It would not be permanent war-mongering but rather the conviction that the “final utopia” of a united Mediterranean comes from a “play between violence and free market organisation and democracy. (…) And it is not by chance if, when the market and democracy are stabilised, the Mediterranean becomes the leading world power”, in turn Greek, Latin, Muslim and Christian. This “middle sea” would be a “miniature of the nightmare of the world”, a human, economic and social, environmental “time bomb” that should be defused as a matter of urgency. The solution would come from “projects”: cooperation between all actors on the ground, towns, and civil society. Mr Attali launches the original idea of taxing maritime traffic (a quarter of the oil produced in the world transits through the Mediterranean) in order to avoid the fate of the Aral Sea.
The Forum ended its session with the adoption of ten recommendations directly addressed to the leaders of the EU and the Mediterranean rim, after the example of the Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950. Like Europe, the Mediterranean “cannot be built in a day or as one overall construction. It will be made with concrete realisations”. The recipe has been tried and tested to create a “de facto solidarity”.
The Paris Declaration thus above all suggests:
1. “The holding in Paris or in another town in the North, of a South-South summit, by 13 July. It would be up to the political leaders of the South rim to meet to coordinate their expectations and their positions”. This would be to correct a situation with which the EU and President Sarkozy is reproached, that of not sufficiently consulting the countries of the southern rim. A trip is being undertaken from early April by a team from the Elysée.
2. “The creation of a committee of wisemen to reflect, in full independence, on the project for a Union for the Mediterranean, its contours and its content”. There are many study groups vying with each other to give body to this new “community”. Groups and networks are vying with each other even within the French government and different European institutions in order to have an influence on the preparations for the summit on 13 July. Among them, there is the director of an economic cooperation council supported by the EU Latin countries, who presents himself as chargé de mission directly on behalf of President Barroso. Andrea Canino would be responsible for establishing a preliminary draft of what the Commission should decide under the European Council mandate. “We have no contact with the services but with the president's private office”, he told EUROPE.
3. “The creation of a Mediterranean OECD on the model of the global organisation reserved for industrialised countries”.
4. “A permanent conference should be set in place for peace and security in the Mediterranean, after the Helsinki model”. The question is how to escape the fatality of the Middle East peace process without losing interest in it.
5. “The creation of an investment fund for development in the Mediterranean, with joint capital”. The EIB, as one of those which had ideas of what the UFM should be, suggested its know-how to rally resources that will not be - or which will not be totally dependent on - EU budgetary resources. The idea of a bank was brought up again.
6. “The creation of an observatory of population, migration and the regulation of the movements of persons”.“Introducing a long-term visa system for three categories of people - qualified workers, seasonal workers and the retired - the feeling of being locked up encourages clandestine immigration; freedom of movement, however, can be a powerful incentive to return to one's country”. The danger of a de facto rupture that would result from preventing people from moving around was clearly stressed by virtually all speakers, and the French immigration minister, Brice Hortefeux, obviously did not manage to convince people when he presented his plan for a 'talents and skills map' to organise monitored free circulation of managers, intellectuals, technicians and artists from the South.
7. “Favouring horizontal cooperation at the level of regions and cities through the creation of a permanent council of Mediterranean regions as the privileged interlocutor of the authorities in Brussels. The regions are planning to carry out cooperation on the ground. Combatting pollution, the fall-out of urban concentration and waste water are, he said, the main problems of the Mediterranean.”
8. “The creation of a professional training agency to encourage qualified immigration to serve the country. For example, a programme to train engineers and technicans specialising in renewable energy; an agency to promote short training courses in water, energy, building, transport, communications and farming.”
9. “The creation of a Mediterranean Erasmus programme; in the long-term, the creation of a full-time Mediterranean university which could expand at a later date to several cities in the North and South.”
10. “In order to encourage the emergence of a feeling of belonging to a shared arena of civilisation, the establishment of a federation of cultural foundations in the Mediterranean is suggested”. In this area, felt to be crucial, there is no need to re-make the world. The Anna Lindh Foundation seemed to be generally popular and in return, its new president, Andre Azoulay, stressed his full availability and commitment for giving form to the UFM.
The ten recommendations end with a memorandum insisting that all bodies should be equally representative, with some located on the north and some on the south of the Mediterranean.
European Commission in the driving seat
The wealth of the debate and the variety of speakers from all countries on both sides of the Mediterranean were outstanding. The speakers included Emma Bonino, outgoing Italian trade minister, and Joaquin Almunia, neither of whom were sparing in their criticism of how the Barcelona process is managed. The commissioner attended as a Spanish politician. It is useful to point this out because the European institution was totally absent from these debates, although they concern the institution above all because it is responsible for preparing the advent of the 'Union for the Mediterranean: Barcelona Process'. The invitations made to the European Commission scarcely had any follow-up. Ms Ferrero-Waldner is reported to have simply not replied. President Barroso let it be known late that he would be attending but then changed his mind two days before the event, according to Albert Mallet, the Forum chair. Community sponsorship, accepted late by Mr Barroso, could therefore not be displayed or printed on time.
What stood out at the end of the three days of debate was the commitment by the entire political and media class to President Sarkozy, a general mobilisation that did not strike any false notes and which, as was repeatedly pointed out, went beyond the splits between Right and Left. The leaders of the Social Democratic opposition (Moscovici, Guigou, Delanoie and Vauzelle) displayed a genuine fervour. Beyond that, it was the prospect of the 'French Presidency' (of the EU) that motivated and fanned enthusiasm, a prospect described as almost a time of salvation or an unblocking of the heavy European machinery that will be clearly focussed on the EuroMed project.
The enthusiasm and faith in the Union for, and 'with', the Mediterraneans were complete. It was described without beating around the bush as 'taking over from' the Barcelona process. Everyone called for the acquis of the Barcelona statement to be consolidated (an acquis that had been recognised but gradually fleshed out by a 'Brussels bureaucracy' believed to have seized a dialogue framework and to be turning it into no more than a structure for notifying its own decisions.) The focus will be on equal representation from now on. The European Commission's role, even in the preparation phase of the 'founding summit' of 13 July, seems to have only been niggardly granted - it will only have to prepare the 'summit', Henri Guaiano, special advisor to the French president, and ambassador Alain Leroy, who is charged with promoting the project, explicitly told this newsletter. An equally representative secretariat will have to take the helm of a process and direct it towards a stronger link between countries around the Mediterranean and even beyond, suggested several speakers, thinking of other Arab countries without a Mediterranean coastline. The approach was explicitly described as historic. MEP Alain Lamassoure stressed the strength of the European model although he seemed upset by the flashes of anger he detected at the European institutions, which were not felt to be capable of properly leading the UFM project. “The project is good, the packaging wasn't”, he agreed, not hiding a strong irritation with the meeting with the president's entourage.
No criticism was spared of Henri Guaino either, but this was mainly levelled at the initial project. It appears to be groundless given that in Hanover and later in Brussels, the mistake of not going through the European institutions, appears to have been rectified. The many references to other regional dialogues, such as the Baltic and North Sea, appear to suggest that the Franco-German quarrel on this subject is not completely finished. Some substantial subjects still need to be discussed. It is very likely that other “compromises” between the European Commission, numerous pressure groups, networks, associations, think-tanks and even Union for the Mediterranean generated NGOs will be needed. The hardest compromise will undoubtedly be at the Elysée itself and within the apparatus of the French state between Henri Guaino and all the others. Clear differences on the way to direct the project can be seen. (F.B.)