Brussels, 26/06/2009 (Agence Europe) - Hassan Abouyoub, roving Ambassador and former Trade Minister, who is Morocco's “EuroMed Czar”, no longer believes in the planned Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), says Moroccan press, reporting comments made at a symposium on the UfM in Casablanca on Tuesday 23 June. The project has become “unmanageable” he said. He suggested that a committee of the wise be set up, to present a new model within six months.
Some speakers called for more practical steps, a “two-phase operation', according to the former Moroccan ambassador to Brussels, Fathallah Sijilmassi. The UfM “could, for example, carry out projects on the basis of the 5+5 dialogue model, which brings together the five countries of the Maghreb and five European countries (France, Italy, Malta, Portugal and Spain), always including the Mediterranean countries,” that is, as their ability to become involved in the joint project develops. The UfM should not, he opined, be closed, “because the ultimate objective of the UfM is the Mediterranean's place in the global economic environment”. Turkish Ambassador to Morocco Haluk Ilicak also distanced himself from the project launched by Paris. According to reports in the Moroccan press, Ilicak recalled that the UfM had been announced “right in the middle of the presidential campaign” and that it had been put forward as an alternative to Turkey's joining the EU, which France bitterly opposes. Others made this link and spoke of the impediment that is the conflict with Israel. While Youssef Amrani, Secretary General at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, welcomed the fact that “the UfM is the only framework which includes Arab countries and Israel at the same time”, Abouyoub said that none of the UfM member states was capable of settling the Israel-Palestine conflict. Only the United States could do that, he argued. (F.B./transl.rt)