Magazine / Politics / Union for the Mediterranean / Debate | 24/04/2008

The Union for the Mediterranean: a fixation?

With the founding of a Union for the Mediterranean, French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to set a new course in European politics. Could the EU benefit from an alliance with the countries on the Mediterranean's southern shores, or would such an alliance in the south be competition for the EU?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy plans to launch the Union for the Mediterranean formally at a summit on July 13, shortly after France takes over the EU presidency for the second half of 2008. Back in early 2007 Sarkozy initiated and went on to dominate the discussion about such a union as part of his election campaign for the French presidency. His European neighbours, however, showed little enthusiasm for the idea.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Hosni Mubarak
Photo: AP

An official cooperation between the EU and the remaining Mediterranean states, called the Barcelona Process, has existed since 1995. However, so far it has failed to produce concrete results: it has held only one summit meeting, in 2005.

Sarkozy's proposal goes beyond the idea of the Barcelona Process, and aims for a considerably more institutionalised union among the Mediterranean countries. Sarkozy believes a union based on the EU model, which encompasses economic cooperation and political collaboration in the battle against terrorism and in environmental protection as well as cultural exchange, could help stabilise the entire Mediterranean region. He reasons that conflicts between southern Mediterranean countries - including that between Israel and Palestine - would thus be easier to deal with.

So why is Nicolas Sarkozy so committed to a Union for the Mediterranean? Is it simply a bid to heighten his profile in France and the EU, as critics claim? Or does he really dream of a unique cultural area like the one evoked by Italian theologian Enzo Bianchi in an article published in La Stampa on 1 August 2006: "The Mediterranean, the land-encircled sea, Mare Nostrum, a sea that might be seen as a bridge between diverse lands, cultures and religions."

Dialogue instead of clash

Nicolas Sarkozy's renewed efforts to forge a Mediterranean Union this spring have provoked very different responses in different European states. In France, as in Italy, the idea of a Mediterranean cultural space is very much alive.

Back in 2006, in an article published in Le Monde on 21 August, the philosopher Etienne Balibar and physicist Jean-Marc-Levy-Leblond pondered the idea of a Mediterranean council: "Its natural members are those with shores on a common sea, from which they have wrought history. Such a regional council would certainly not offer an automatic guarantee of peace, but it is the sole antidote to the rationale of the clash of civilisations."

Dialogue instead of a clash of cultures; this is a vision that Spain also shares. In such a context the Union of the Mediterranean would serve as an institutional supplement to the "Alliance of Civilisations" promoted by Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Zapatero has agreed to back Sarkozy's initiative.

Immigration

Domestic policy considerations are another reason why Sarkozy's proposal has met with approval in Spain. "The desire to create a Mediterranean Union is giving a new dimension to Franco-Spanish collaboration. ... Right now this implies solidarity and a common response to the enormous problems Spain is facing, caused by the massive influx of illegal immigrants from the south and the many others via French territory," the Spanish newspaper Sur commented on 1 July 2007.

The immigration problem also has countries like Malta and Italy looking positively on the idea of the Mediterranean Union.

And in the French Figaro of 14 October 2007, Pierre Rousselin brought up another argument in favour of the Mediterranean Union: "If there's one thing Europe's good at, it's spreading its system of government. Up until now it has achieved this through enlargement, but now it has reached its limits in this respect. Turkey may not like the idea, but the time has come to try another approach."

The Turkey Issue

So far Turkey, which as a Mediterranean country is entitled to be a member of the proposed Union, has adopted a rather sceptical stance towards the project. After all, Sarkozy spoke out strongly against Turkey joining the EU during his election campaign. The Turks feared that the offer to integrate Turkey into the Mediterranean Union was intended as an alternative to EU membership.

Consequently, the stances of the different EU countries regarding Turkish EU membership have influenced their respective attitudes towards the Mediterranean Union. For example Portugal, which is very involved in the Alliance of Civilisations, favours cooperation with its neighbouring continent to the south. But from the Portuguese point of view the Turkish issue was a strategic disadvantage of the Mediterranean Union as conceived by Sarkozy.

Protest from Germany

In addition to the Turkey issue, it's also unclear which countries should be members of the Union for the Mediterranean - only those bordering the Mediterranean, irrespective of EU membership, or all EU countries, the majority of which are not on the Mediterranean? And to what extent would the EU participate in such a project? It was precisely this last point that led to severe criticism of Sarkozy's proposal for a union exclusively for Mediterranean countries. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in particular, expressed disapproval of the idea that other EU countries should be excluded, and even warned that this could cause the disintegration of Europe.

In the British daily The Independent of 27 March 2008, Adrian Hamilton pointed out with reference to Germany's criticism that Sarkozy was "full of initiatives, it is true, but few are thought out and even fewer followed through. ... He came up with a policy for a Mediterranean-wide grouping without considering the effect on the non-Mediterranean countries of the EU, and in particular Germany." This view is also acknowledged in Italy and Spain. "What happens in the Mediterranean region concerns all Europeans, therefore Mediterranean policies need to be coordinated with all other European activities," the Spanish daily Sur contended on 21 December 2007.

Shortly before the EU summit of 13 March 2008, the Spanish newspaper ABC expressed sympathy with Germany's concerns: "Sarkozy wanted to create a structure within which the Mediterranean countries would profit from the Europeans - without northern and western European countries having any influence. It's clear that this proposal was not acceptable because it would drive an institutional wedge between the countries of the Union." Sarkozy made concessions at the EU summit in mid-March and reached an agreement with other EU states to the effect that all EU countries would be allowed to join the Mediterranean Union.

Soon afterwards, Turkey received assurances from France that its participation in a Mediterranean union would not be an alternative to EU membership. The official name of the project is no longer the Mediterranean Union but the "Union for the Mediterranean". "This is not just a semantic shift. Far from being the great success Paris had intended, the Union for the Mediterranean is merely a reactivation of the moribund Euro-Mediterranean Partnership established in Barcelona back in 1995," Olivier le Bussy pointed out in La Libre Belgique on 15 March 2008.

Conflicts between southern Mediterranean countries

However, even this watered-down version of a Union for the Mediterranean is viewed with scepticism by some. Daniela Weingärtner, Brussels correspondent for Germany's tageszeitung commented on 20 March 2008: "These neighbours are too diverse both culturally and economically for their demands to be satisfied through a common Mediterranean policy."

Peter Winkler pointed to another weakness: those Mediterranean countries that are not EU members are not at all enthusiastic about the project, and some of them are either hostile to each other or locked in conflict. "Sarkozy, too, should have noticed that in recent years the interest of the Mediterranean states in the EU's offers of billions has dwindled. Instead of thinking up new ways for throwing billions of euros southwards across the Mediterranean, the causes for this lack of interest should be examined," he wrote in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of 14 March 2008. In her article, Weingärtner suggested that the European Commission concentrate on developing a tailor-made negotiating strategy for each individual country that meets with the approval of all 27 EU members.

The European Seas

So what lies ahead for the Union for the Mediterranean? It will be launched in July, but commitment to the project is clearly dependent on geographical location.

Writing in the Berliner Zeitung on 31 March 2008, Jan Brachmann claimed the Baltic Sea region had long surpassed the Mediterranean in importance: "Old Europe is gasping for breath. The last gasp, which came from Nicolas Sarkozy, was called the 'Mediterranean Union'. But with the exception of Catalonia and Provence, there is barely any economic or intellectual impetus coming from the Mediterranean area - with the exception, perhaps, of the culinary sphere. Even when it comes to tourism, more and more people are heading north thanks to global warming. ... The geographical centre of the Continent is Vilnius, which is not far from the Baltic, even if the Latinised West still sees this region as peripheral."

Meike Dülffer

Meike Dülffer was an editor for euro|topics. She studied Slavic studies, Eastern European History and Politics. She trained as a journalist at Berliner Zeitung before ...
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