Ten years of the Euro-Med Partnership

THE Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) is certainly the most important regional process that currently exists in the Mediterranean as it brings together all the European Union member states and ten Mediterranean countries - Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Turkey.

At the first Euro-Mediterranean foreign ministerial conference held in Barcelona in November 1995 the original 27 Euro-Med countries established three principal areas of co-operation.

¤ a political and security partnership with the aim of establishing a common area of peace and stability;

¤ an economic and financial partnership with the aim of creating an area of shared prosperity; and

¤ a partnership in social, cultural and human affairs in an effort to promote understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies.

The Barcelona Declaration stresses the strategic importance of the Mediterranean and is founded on a basic understanding that future Euro-Mediterranean relations should be based on comprehensive co-operation and solidarity, in keeping with the privileged nature of the links forged by neighbourhood and history.

Given the more indifferent patterns of regional relations that have dominated Mediterranean relations than those that existed in November 1995, it is no small feat that the EMP Partnership has continued to evolve. The consecutive high turnout of foreign ministers at EMP summits in Malta, Stuttgart, Marseilles, Valencia, Naples and Luxembourg testifies to the importance that the participating countries continue attach to the Barcelona Process.

As the Barcelona Process celebrates its tenth anniversary, the participating Euro-Med countries will take stock of progress registered in each of the different co-operative sectors they are seeking to advance. The groundwork for the eventual introduction of a Charter for Peace and Stability, preparations for the smooth functioning of a Euro-Med free trade area and the establishment of an interactive Euro-Mediterranean Foundation that brings civil society together at regular intervals should be the priority areas that policy-makers focus on.

The EU Commission's "Work Programme for the next five years", published in the first half of this year, which identifies areas of co-operation where implementation of confidence-building measures can proceed in the short term, should also be carried out

If EU efforts to foster inter-Mediterranean political and economic co-operation are to succeed, they must be complemented by initiatives of Mediterranean states themselves as part of a process that aims to create a transnational network allowing cross-border economic and financial interaction.

To date, the Mediterranean has not succeeded in creating an environment where people, products, ideas and services are allowed to flow freely. At the moment there are too many bottlenecks in the system and this will prohibit the region from competing and prospering in the global village of tomorrow.

Through its neighbourhood policy the EU is seeking to secure its borders by promoting a ring of well-governed countries to the East and South of Europe. The overriding goal of this policy will be to ensure that enlargement does not create new dividing lines in Europe. The EU is already seeking to project prosperity and resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict is a strategic priority for Europe. Stability in the Middle East depends on such an outcome. Measures must also be introduced to bolster the Barcelona Process by dedicating more resources and commitment to the EMP objectives of enhancing economic, security and cultural co-operation with the Mediterranean.

In the Mediterranean the progressive establishment of Euro-Med free trade in the next 10 years will have far-reaching consequences for Mediterranean societies and economies. Euro-Mediterranean policymakers must articulate more clearly the positive goals and the time frame it will take to implement such goals. Emphasising that the Barcelona Process is a long-term initiative will also help eliminate the high expectations that have dominated the EMP since 1995.

By 2015 the EMP will vastly enhance the volume of trade within that gigantic trade area. One may expect that by 2015 the participating 40-odd countries will do 50-60 per cent of all their trade within the zone. In the next decade the EMP will also have a positive impact on the amount of foreign direct investment in the Mediterranean countries.

Assured market access and an improved overall political and economic environment will facilitate the task of attracting European, American and Asian investors to this region of the world.

In addition, the EMP will accelerate the pace of social and political reforms. As the Euro-Med free trade area becomes operational, the business community is certain to want to have a say in political matters, whether these concern the tax regime, the level of education, the functioning of the judiciary, or social security.

A decade into the Euro-Med Process a reality check reveals this multilateral initiative continues to lack visibility. Few European taxpayers or Mediterranean beneficiaries are aware of the Euro-Med co-operative networks that have been established or of the partnership building measures that have been introduced or are about to be launched.

The Euro-Med Partners should ensure that the EMP has enough of a direct positive impact on the Euro-Med citizens it is supposed to be addressing. As discussed earlier, raising awareness of the EMP can be overcome by directing more of future Euro-Med programmes to the civil societal level, especially educational programmes as already identified by the European Commission in its work programme for the next five years.

Closer cross-cultural co-operation can only be achieved if a more concerted effort is made to seek a convergence on the basic values that are part and parcel of the civilisations surrounding the Mediterranean area. The establishment of a functioning Euro-Mediterranean Foundation that seeks to promotes a dialogue between cultures and civilisation around the Mediterranean offers this possibility.

In many ways the Barcelona Process is a farsighted and novel initiative. Some scholars believe that the EMP is so ahead of its time that it is unrealistic to achieve the objectives stipulated in the Barcelona Declaration.

A major problem with the EMP is that it takes little account of the need for prior resolution of existing disputes in the Mediterranean area that include the Arab-Israeli, Cyprus and Western Sahara conflicts. It is highly unlikely that protagonists in each of these disputes can enter into co-operative security arrangements without first resolving their antagonisms.

Only the creation of a co-operative Mediterranean region in which the perceptual and prosperity gap is addressed, reduced and gradually eliminated, will ensure that the Mediterranean does not become a zone of indifference and an eventual economic wasteland.

Integrating the Mediterranean into the 21st century international system through mechanisms such as the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the EU Neighbourhood Policy and a sustainable Middle East peace process is the immediate challenge that the international community must confront. Otherwise transnational sources of instability emanating from the Mediterranean will continue to manifest themselves at a regional and international level.

Dr Calleya is an international relations analyst and author of Evaluating Euro-Mediterranean Relations, Routledge, 2005.