Trade Negotiations Insights • Volume 8 • Number 5 • June 2009

The Union for the Mediterranean: Progress, Difficulties and Way Forward

by Stéphanie Colin

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The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) - a new framework established last year to revive relations between the EU and Mediterranean countries - has faced significant obstacles. These difficulties have raised significant questions. Namely, is the new scheme translating into projects with the potential to enhance the visibility of UfM activities and bring these closer to the people - one of the weaknesses of its predecessor, the Euro Mediterranean Partnership (EMP)? What are the most salient difficulties slowing down implementation?

From the EMP to the UfM

The EMP was launched in November 1995 at the Barcelona Summit meeting of Foreign Ministers starting what became known as the ‘Barcelona Process’. The objective of the Partnership is to establish an area of peace, stability, mutual understanding amongst peoples of the Mediterranean, and shared prosperity through enhanced co-operation and deepening of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area (EMFTA) by 2010.

The UfM plan was formally established at the Paris Summit on 13 July 2008, with the aim of providing “a new impulse to the Barcelona Process.” The European Council of 13 March 2008 “enshrined the ‘Europeanisation’ of the French initiative thereby establishing the UfM framework as the central new policy of the EU towards the Mediterranean.” The partnership today includes the 27 EU member states and 16 Mediterranean partner countries (MPCs)[1].

The UfM is expected to build on the acquis from previous initiatives and to reinforce the achievements of the Barcelona Process. The aims of the EMP therefore remain valid for the UfM.

The UfM is structured around six priority projects selected by heads of state and government and annexed to the Paris Declaration: de-pollution of the Mediterranean; maritime and land highways; civil protection; alternative energies embodied in the Mediterranean Solar Plan; higher education and research and Euro-Mediterranean University; and the Mediterranean Business Development Initiative..

A challenging implementation

An important question is whether UfM projects will have the strategic and dynamic character required to help overcome the limits of previous EU and EMP policies. If they do, the UfM would certainly add value to the EMP.

Among the economic achievements of the EMP worth noting is the satisfactory implementation of the bilateral free-trade areas established through Association Agreements. These zones - together with free trade agreements between Mediterranean partner countries and an overall reinforced integration promoted by the ‘Action Plans’ within the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) launched in 2004 - are laying the foundations for the EMFTA architecture. Accordingly, the significant economic reforms resulting from development plans implemented within the EMP and the ENP frameworks have contributed to the transition of the Mediterranean “from a stagnant and internationally-closed area, to one of dynamism and international integration”[2].

However, tariffs and non tariffs barriers remain at a high level on both sides. Although South-South integration remains a critical building block for deepening the EMFTA, structural and functional constraints undermine its prospects, with MPCs still only trading around 8 percent of their total exchanges with one another[3]. An important decision is also pending: 2010 is around the corner and a Mediterranean free trade area is nowhere in sight.

The impact of EU policies on the performance of Southern Mediterranean partners could be improved further. It has been constrained by the holistic approach of the EMP and difficulties to achieve a regional dimension due to the heterogeneity that exists between MPCs.

The UfM should therefore potentially complement the strong bilateral focus of the ENP with a regional dimension. While the UfM’s focus on fewer projects, as opposed to the holistic sectoral approach of the EMP, indicates potential for greater emphasis on concrete sectoral economic integration, it may lack the necessary vision and coherence to promote a truly integrative agenda. Sceptics have argued that the six priority projects identified for the UfM reflect more the interests of large French business operators than priority development objectives for the partner countries concerned. Besides, duplications can result from the process of combining the UfM with the EMP, as many sectoral projects belong to the EMP experience.

Political obstacles remain

Political problems have hampered progress at the level of the UfM as a whole and at the economic level more specifically. The potential divisive impact of the UfM on Africa, split between Mediterranean African countries and Sub-Sahara Africa, and as a consequence on Africa-EU relations, has fuelled the reluctance of some MPCs to engage with the UfM initiative, thereby slowing down implementation. This led Libya to warn that the UfM would lead Africa to a so-called ‘two speed cooperation’ with the EU, where Sub-Saharan countries will be relegated to a secondary place as opposed to North Africa[4]. The challenge is thus to preserve the coherence of the Joint Africa-EU Strategy and to ensure the effective complementarity of the UfM with the other existing EU frameworks.

In addition, two persistent political problems have undermined the plan of a UfM, according to Patrick Seale, a leading expert on the Middle East[5]. The first major political obstacle is the Arab-Israeli conflict, which flared up from December 2008 to January 2009. The war caused Egypt to call for a formal suspension of all UfM related meetings; none had been held up to December. In addition, Seale cautions that any serious talk of joint Mediterranean projects will rely on solving the current dispute between Algeria and Morocco over the Western Sahara; the border between the two North African heavy-weights currently remains closed.

Way forward

The key challenges to moving forward will be to look behind the promising rhetoric and identify the effective added value that the UfM can bring and to ensure there is greater coherence and proper coordination with existing EU-Mediterranean initiatives. A swift implementation of the initiative will be made even more difficult with the current economic downturn pulling European countries’ attention away from the Mediterranean region, and reducing available financing for investment.

For some, the UfM as it stands offers limited economic prospects. However, a representative of a North African investment bank recently commented that the Mediterranean Solar Plan, whereby the EU will finance solar farms in the Mediterranean region and buy electricity for EU consumption, may be an exception which will have potential.

The next year will be crucial for the future of the Union for the Mediterranean. Several meetings are forthcoming, including an important ministerial conference on sustainable development, planned for early June in Monaco. Another notable event will be the summit meeting of Mediterranean Union heads of state scheduled for 2010, during the Spanish presidency of the EU.

Progress will rely on whether the UfM can deliver concrete economic projects that promote effective economic cooperation among Mediterranean partners in a coherent manner and show early benefits for ordinary people. To a large extent, this will rest on the capacity to overcome current political problems. French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s view that the UfM should be established not in spite of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but because of it, is proving to be too simplistic. A real effort is needed this year to resolve this conflict. Progress will also require greater cooperation among North African countries - a prerequisite for strengthening the Mediterranean region as a whole.

In this regard, the first Maghreb Employers’ Union forum, held on 10-11 May 2009 in Algiers, is a positive step. On this occasion, a Minister from Algeria announced that officials from Algeria and Morocco were discussing opening the land border between the two countries[8]. But the road is long before achieving the ambitious vision of a Union for the Mediterranean.

Author

Stéphanie Colin is Research Assistant at the European Centre for Development Policy Management.

Notes

[1] The members are the 27 European Union member states and 16 Mediterranean partner countries (MPCs): Albania, Algeria, Bosnia & Herzegovinia, Croatia, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya (observer status), Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Syria, Tunisia, and Turkey.

[2] Aliboni, R. and F.M. Ammor, ‘Under the Shadow of ‘Barcelona’: From the EMP to the Union for the Mediterranean, EuroMesco Paper no.77, January 2009.

[3] Font, S., ‘Overview of the Barcelona Process and its new step: Union for the Mediterranean’, May 2009. www.acp-eu-trade.org/library/library_detail.php?doc_language=en&library_detail_id=5034

[4] ‘Libya says Mediterranean Union will divide Africa’, EU observer online, 5 August 2008; The Mediterranean Union: will it split Africa? , Reuters, 16 July 2008.

[5] ‘Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union on Hold’, Patrick Seale, Europafrica.net, 16 March 2009.

[6] ‘Arab summit rejects arrest warrant for Bashir’, Chinaview.cn, 31 March 2009.

[7] ‘Les efforts reprennent pour relancer l’Union pour la Méditerranée’, AFP, 23 avril 2009.

[8] ‘Maghreb business leaders pursue regional solutions’, Zawya, 13 May 2009.

Recent meetings:

The last Summit of Arab Heads of State in Qatar, at the end of March 2009, carried hopes of revival of the Union initiative. Aside from the suggestion of a candidate for the head of the Secretariat of the UfM, due to be installed in Barcelona, the UfM initiative was, however, not at the centre of the decisions. Rather, talks focused on the arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the inter-Arab reconciliation and the Middle East peace process[6]. To make matters worse, Egypt - co-chairing [ACCA1] the UfM initiative together with French President Sarkozy - was absent and several Arab countries had not yet defined their position vis-à-vis the Israeli coalition.

Two further initiatives have attempted to revive the stalled process: on 21 April 2009, (for the first time since December 2008), a meeting of the representatives from participating countries took place in Spain[7], and two days later the European Foreign Affairs chief convened an informal meeting in Brussels to gather EU, Arab and Israeli partners. But to date, a significant institutional obstacle remains: the Secretariat General is still without a head.

Under the Shadow of ‘Barcelona’

R. Aliboni, F. Ammor

The UfM may definitely represent a step forward in Euro-Mediterranean relations. Success will depend on the capacity of the UfM’s mixed organisation to outline and implement its programme and on the willingness of political leaders to compromise where necessary and lend impetus to the initiative.

The debate that stimulated the establishment of the UfM was more focused on EU cohesion than on the merits of the initiative itself and of the Mediterranean area. This may prove a weakening factor for the UfM in the future. For this reason, far from taking the UfM for granted, the project must be submitted to further debate.

Recommendations for the future based on a broad evaluation of the UfM include:

First, key UfM projects must be carefully coordinated with the Commission’s past and current sectoral activities, as well as with its broader activities to avoid potential duplications.

Second, a prudent and gradual approach of ‘low politics first, high politics later’ should be adopted in the context of vulnerability of the UfM to disagreements stemming from outstanding conflicts in the Euro-Mediterranean area.

‘Under the Shadow of ‘Barcelona’: From the EMP to the Union for the Mediterranean’, EuroMesco Paper n.7, January 2009, available at: http://www.euromesco.net/images/paper77eng.pdf.