November 28 is the Day of the Mediterranean. The day was established by the Union for the Mediterranean for the first time three years ago “to celebrate achievements, embrace diversity, to strengthen ties between our two shores and to deepen our understanding of each other” and address our common regional and global challenges.
The Union for the Mediterranean itself was founded in 2008 to reinforce the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership.
There is not one single issue in the region, from Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon to climate change, water scarcity, decarbonisation, digitalisation, weak economic growth, unemployment and brain drain, poor infrastructure, weak regional integration, immigration, organised crime, terrorism, religious intolerance… which can be solved by one country alone. We are condemned to solve these problems together or not at all.
About this year’s theme, ‘The Next Wave: building a shared tomorrow’, the Union for the Mediterranean says: “Conflicts shake our societies and raise questions about our humanity, exacerbated by the rise of disinformation that builds walls instead of bridges. Unemployment and exclusion affect our youth’s future prospects on both shores, as climate change ravages our coasts and ecosystems and inequalities continue to deepen within and across our societies. As a result, migration in the region appears as a symptom of deep-rooted causes that aren’t yet treated properly.
“But within these challenges lie incredible opportunities: the chance to shape the Mediterranean we want, built on resilience, cooperation and a better tomorrow for all.”
With eyes wide open I dream that the way forward for Europe and the Mediterranean is to resurrect the Helsinki spirit, which has become a ghost. Not many had high hopes for the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe nearly 50 years ago when it was held in the middle of the Cold War. But it proved to be a turning point in the easing of tensions between the West and the East before it was killed by NATO’s expansion.
The disbanding of the Warsaw Pact after the dissolution of the Soviet Union was an opportunity to disband NATO and through the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) create a Cooperative Security Architecture for the whole of Europe, from Portugal to Russia.
Will Donald Trump’s return to the White House somehow serve to resurrect the Helsinki spirit? There can be no peace and stability anywhere in the world if the US, the EU and Russia do not repair their relationship. The OSCE’s cooperative approach to security, resting on the underlying premise that security is indivisible � meaning that cooperation is beneficial to all participating states while the insecurity in and/or of one state can affect the well-being of all � is still indispensable.
The lessons of the deep coma OSCE has been pushed into should serve as a cautionary tale for wherever a regional cooperative security system needs to be set up. No big bang approach is possible. The real world is not a fairy tale where hate and war turn into love and peace in a big bang magical way.
A lot of gradual, incremental hard work is needed to overcome exclusion and distrust.
A divided tomorrow?
We should not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the apostles of militarism as if they are the adults in the room. Nor should we accept the argument that we should wait for favourable conditions to arise to start working for cooperative security.
The disbanding of the Warsaw Pact was an opportunity to disband NATO and through the OSCE create a security architecture for Europe- Evarist Bartolo
We must help to create those favourable circumstances. They will not fall from heaven. As the American poet Archibald MacLeish wrote in the preamble to the constitution of UNESCO: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.”
Democratic politicians and activists in North African countries feel let down by the European Union. They hear the EU leaders talk of the rule of law, democracy and human rights but then cynically betray all these noble values by not wanting to upset the status quo in countries like Tunisia and Libya as they reach agreements with those in power about the control of migrants towards the shores of Southern Europe from the shores of Northern Africa.
This stand-alone security policy is just a stop gap as it is not combined with a long-term economic project that includes double taxation, technological cooperation and transfer of production, particularly agricultural production.
The EU’s asymmetrical trade relationship with the Mediterranean countries of North Africa has not changed since the 1960s. This relationship is seen by the populations of the Mediterranean North African countries as perpetuating exploitation, paternalism and neocolonialism.
A reciprocal comprehensive continental approach by the EU towards its Mediterranean neighbours should also extend to education, energy, tourism, construction, infrastructure but also services ranging from banking and insurance to transport.
The European Union’s leaders show scant attention to the Mediterranean with their head in the better off North and the poor legs, far away in the South. Since the EU’s enlargement to the East, most of its agenda has been taken up by issues of its Eastern Neighbourhood. Its new focus on the Indo-Pacific is stretching the EU away from the Mediterranean.
Southern Europe continues to be poorer than Northern Europe. The political leadership in the capitals of EU member states largely ignore the predicament of their southern regions. How can they take seriously other regions, further South, in the Mediterranean?
With this kind of geographical, demographic and economic reality where the epicentre of the EU is “far away” from the Mediterranean, no wonder that the Mediterranean is not on the EU’s agenda in a meaningful and consistent manner. To what extent will the creation of an EU commissioner for the Mediterranean address this deficit?
Such a role will be ineffective if the EU continues to muddle along, without a strategic comprehensive approach, with member states competing against each other, pushing our Mediterranean neighbours in North Africa not only to go their way without the EU but actually to move against the EU.
Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour foreign and education minister.