Brussels 03/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - Two Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) meetings will take place in Brussels on the same day next week, Tuesday 7 July, to kick-start activity that has been put on hold in 2009 since the invasion of Gaza at the end of 2008. Nothing will be decided until an inter-Arab meeting during the day on Monday, which will determine the outcome of the 7 July meetings.
The first meeting on 7 July will be of high-ranking officials (mainly ambassador) responsible for monitoring the EuroMed process, who have only met once since 2008 - more for a briefing by Javier Solana on the EU's views on the Israeli-Palestinian than for formal talks as such. This meeting will provide an opportunity to examine whether the conditions are in place for UfM work. It will also provide an opportunity to examine the operations of the Anna Lindt Culture Foundation (the board of which comprises the same high-ranking officials). The second meeting will see economics and finance ministers discuss two issues - the impact of the financial crisis and implementation of FEMIP funding (the EuroMed Investment and Partnership Facility) managed by the European Investment Bank. Details of the announcements of a re-working of FEMIP will be set out at the meeting. The EIB wants to adjust FEMIP, which will be celebrating its first anniversary on 13 July 2009, to match the new UfM backdrop. Prof. Jean-Louis Reiffers, chair of the FEMISE scientific committee (EuroMed Economics Institutes' Forum) will attend the meeting to discuss plans for research into the impact of the economic crisis in countries bordering the Mediterranean.
There is clear hope that UfM activity will get going despite the institutional vagaries surrounding the setting up of structures and how the UfM will operate in practice. Despite several direct and indirect calls for a revisiting of the structure (particularly from Morocco), the new EuroMed “regional organisation” is supposed to be fully up and running, although all the participating countries seem to interpret its aims and substance in a different way. The differences in opinion are hard to distinguish. The EU side is as divided as the Arabs on this issue, as are all other partner countries (like Turkey, which does not want to encourage any options that might turn the UfM into an alternative to Turkey joining the EU, but at the same time does not want to be absent from the new prospects being worked out by the secretariat and wants everything to be considered in the light of its relationship with Cyprus).
Opinions have been expressed outside the EuroMed zone itself. The president of Senegal, for example, Abdulaye Wade, says the UfM will only cut off North Africa from sub-Saharan Africa. Similar views have been expressed by Libya's leader, Colonel Kadhafi. This concern from African countries, who want a continent-wide approach to the African Mediterranean, is being taken seriously. A former French cooperation minister, Olivier Stirn, has been given responsibility in the UfM management team in Paris for coming up with a set-up that could build bridges between Euro-African and EuroMed policies.
A high-ranking European official commented that the baby has been born but everyone is still talking about its conception and the characteristics it should be given. Another official, from a different EU institution, said that he didn't quite understand what was going on either and one would have to wait and see.
One may ask what attitude the Swedish Presidency will take. It has been in office and chairing the UfM for only three days. Unlike the Czech Presidency (see EUROPE 9932), the Swedish Presidency made it very clear that it was intending to take its powers seriously in this domain. One may also ask what attitude the Spanish Presidency will take in the first half of next year. Sweden's determination has come up against a double whammy - France's determination to remain UfM co-president at any cost for two years and therefore break the usual EU rotation rule, and Sweden's fear of scattering its scarce human recourses, which are being fully stretched by Sweden being at the helm of the EU. A possible solution seems to be emerging, which the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, will spell out in a visit to Stockholm this weekend - sharing the task 50/50. 'Co-co-presidency' as an EU official put it. Sweden would co-chair political meetings, including meetings between high-ranking officials and France would co-chair the rest, particularly industry-specific and technical meetings, like the meeting on sustainable development in Paris at the end of last month, which has been described as a success but from which nobody will draw any political conclusions about the continuation of dialogue, even if an Israeli minister attended the meeting alongside ministers from Arab countries (Jordan, Syria, North Africa, etc). Except in Paris, that is, where an intense media campaign saw the meeting as the end of the Israeli-Arab issue that has been hampering the UfM. As far as Arab states are concerned, nothing has yet been decided. The Arab League has only been attending “technical” meetings and boycotting political meetings, including the meeting of high-ranking officials in Brussels on 7 July 2009. The different ambassadors interpret the Arab League's behaviour in different ways and some were still wondering on Friday 3 July whether their finance ministers should attend the meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. The EU invitation letter to economics and finance ministers was signed by everyone- Sweden, France, Egypt, the European Commission (Joaquin Almunia) and the president of the EIB - while the decision is taken about who is at the helm.
People are intrigued about what the French are up to. Various sources in the EU institutions concur in not understanding the motives behind France and Spain joining forces to keep control over the running of UfM, saying that it cannot be shared by just two member states because the EU27 as a whole has to decide. Particularly because this Franco-Spanish bid for power is described as meaningless once the Lisbon Treaty comes into force because it would then be for the EU's “Mr Foreign Policy” (foreign minister) to chair the EuroMed for the EU. Unless, that is, the Franco-Spanish manoeuvrings (Italy does not seem to be involved in this any more) is aimed to encourage the emergence of an intergovernmental EuroMed Union. This option is in the background of all the debates on the setting up of a UfM headquarters in the future (in Barcelona). The questions remain to be decided about the headquarters' role, the powers of its secretary general and the 5 or 6 deputy secretaries (Turkey is disappointed that the promise of a 6th secretary by Bernard Kouchner at the Marseille Summit in November 2008 has evaporated and is calling for his promise to be kept, generating similar demands from Cyprus). Against these machinations, the role of the European Commission is an open question as is design of the UfM - should it have an institutional set-up or an intergovernmental structure? (F.B./transl.fl)