What does the Union for the Mediterranean tell us?

The difficult beginnings of the Union for the Mediterranean are instructive about the process of developing a geopolitical project inside the European Union. Site Director of Geopolitics Diploweb.com, Pierre Verluise responded to Alexandra Dobra’s questions.

Question : The Union for the Mediterranean was officially launched on the 13th of July 13 2008, in Paris. At which stage is the project initiated by the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy ?

Pierre Verluise : The Mediterranean Union counts 43 full members, among which all member countries of the European Union and most countries of southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, except Libya. It does also include the Arab League who got to participate of full right after a difficult diplomatic process. The location of the Secretariat General of the Union for the Mediterranean has been subject of controversy. Syria and Lebanon were opposed to locate it in an Arab country and Tunisia’s bid was eliminated after a long dispute, in favour of Barcelona (Spain). The Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, the Jordanian Ahmed Jalaf Massadeh was finally installed in office 19 months after the Paris Summit, the 4th of March 2010. Florence Beauge argued that Paris "would have preferred a Tunisian to a Jordanian for this position. But Tunis, annoyed that Barcelona has won the seat of the Secretariat General, refused to put forth a candidate. If the Jordan has won the prize, it was due to a default of a rival. [1]" To be that as it may, the appointed Secretary General is surrounded by six Assistant Secretaries General : Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Italy, Greece, Malta and Turkey. It seems that the award of a Secretariat-General position for Israel is mainly the result of diplomatic efforts by Bernard Kouchner, French foreign minister.

Question : The result seems for the moment to be weak. Many observers alight that the context was not favourable, why ?
P. Verluise : Beyond its formal advancements, the intermediary balance assessment seems indeed still weak. Number of observers noted that the context was not favourable.

Indeed, the financial crisis begins from autumn 2008 to produce fearsome economic and now social effects. The fluxes of North to South DFIs (Direct Foreign Investments) are diminishing in the Mediterranean, while the South-South consultation is hard to work.

The war waged by Israel in the Gaza Strip from December 27th of 2008 to January the 17th of 2009 came whereas the UfM was starting up. The operation "hard lead" came immediately to demonstrate that the Israeli-Palestinian blocked or at least slowed down sectoral policies provided by the UfM. The meetings of the Union for the Mediterranean scheduled between January and April 2009 have been postponed. The work could then resume, first at the level of senior officials and ministers. In fact, the underlying tension remained. Thus in November 2009, the Egyptian foreign minister refused to meet his Israeli counterpart, the ultra-nationalist Avigdor Lieberman, during a meeting of foreign ministers of the UfM planned in Istanbul. The Israeli commandos assault against a fleet seeking to force the blockade of Gaza, May 31, 2010, might again impact the process.

On the eve of the first anniversary, the European Commission made a political gesture by reinforcing its contribution to projects having priority. The 10th of July 2009, “the European Commission announced a supplementary contribution of 72 Millions of Euros, for the period of 2009-2010, in favour of intervention domains judged as having priority by the Euro-Mediterranean government, on the occasion of their meeting in Paris. […] A part of the fund will serve to sustain the functioning of the secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean. This contribution raises at 90 Millions of Euros the total allocated communitarian budget, since 2008, for the priorities recorded by the Union for the Mediterranean. [2]”
Apart from the costs inflicted by the run of the Secretariat General of the Union for the Mediterranean, the main posts are as following [3] :

. Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership (FEMIP) (€ 32 million for 2009-2010)

. Environment – De-pollution of the Mediterranean (22 million € for 2009-2010)

. Motorways of the Sea and Land Highways (€ 7.5 million)

. Alternative Energies : Mediterranean Solar Plan (€ 5,000,000)

. Higher education and research - Euro-Mediterranean University : € 1 million for the Euro-Mediterranean University in Portoroz (Slovenia).

Question : However, signs of acceleration appear to be growing as we approach the UfM’s second anniversary.
P. Verluise  : Two recent facts argue for the lift-off of the process.

On the 13th of April 2010, representatives of the Union for the Mediterranean were reunited in Barcelona for a conference on water. France ensured the co-presidency of the UfM together with Egypt. Paris was represented by Pierre Lellouche, State secretary in charge of European Affairs. Afterwards the work of an experts group originally from 43 countries members of the UfM, the clarified strategy articulates around 4 principal themes : “water governance, climate change and fight against extreme phenomenons, the management of water demand and use of non-conventional resources and lastly the financing of the sector. [4] ”

On May 26, 2010, French diplomacy has announced the creation of an investment fund of 385 million Euros, Inframed, intended to finance projects of the Union for the Mediterranean. For a first time endowed with 385 million Euros, it is an important tool for financing and implementing concrete projects in the Mediterranean area, in areas falling within the priorities set by the Paris Declaration such as transport and energy infrastructures. This fund will raise private capital to finance projects in all 43 member states of the Union for the Mediterranean. This project is jointly launched by the French Caisse des Depots (which contributes with about 150 million Euros), the Italian Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (150 million Euros), the Deposit and Management of Morocco (20 million Euros) and Egypt (EFG Hermes 15 million Euros) as well as the European Investment Bank (which will provide 50 million Euros) [5] .
The deposit office presents Inframed as the « most important fund devoted to investments in meridonial and oriental Mediterranean shores. […] [6] . » It adds that this fund « should mobilize 1Milliard Euros on the full term”. If this eventuality would become realized then the UfM would change its extensiveness. It remains to determine what kind of biases these investors would induct in the UfM’s ulterior developments.

Question : How can we explain the particularly difficult boot of this project ?

P. Verluise : To provide a one sentence answer : Nicolas Sarkozy did not respect the consultation procedures on which the European Union does rest, hence the other countries did slow and re-adjust the initial project.

Indeed, in the context of an election campaign, the presidential candidate of the French Republic Nicolas Sarkozy evokes on the 7th of February 2007 during a speech in Toulon his plans for a Mediterranean Union (MU). He then enrolled in an intergovernmental Mediterranean-centered perspective rather than communitarian. It is question of offering to all countries bordering the Mediterranean - and only them - a process of equal partnership to build a common destiny, based on the precedent of the European Economic Community (EEC). Own structures and budget would allow to establish specific policies. N. Sarkozy does thus not intend to give the EU the chance to give its opinion. This constitutes a biased departure heavily mortgaging the development of the project. Can we imagine for a moment France to be concerned with vague campaign promises made by a presidential candidate of another member country of the EU ? The assumption makes us smile. However, it is somehow what happened outside the borders of France for this project.

Question : What happens once French president N. Sarkozy has been elected ?

P. Verluise : On the evening of his election for the French presidency, the 6th of May 2007, N. Sarkozy reminded with emotion his engagement in favour of a Mediterranean Union. On the 23rd of October 2007, he pronounced in Morocco, in Tanger, a discourse drawing the lines of the project. The Mediterranean Union must be founded on a political volition, but must also be pragmatic, endowed with a variable geometry, for forming a Union of projects, without substituting itself to existent initiatives but with the intention to give a new élan. Soon afterwards, German officials made it clear to France that it is out of question to accept this scission of Europe which would bring in, according to them, the use of Communitarian funds for a project which would not involve the members of the EU as a whole.

On the 5th of december 2007, the German chancellor, Angela Merkel declared, during a conference in Berlin : « it would be possible that Germany finds itself more concerned with central and oriental Europe, and France more attracted by the Mediterranean Union : however this could free explosive forces and I do not want it. I believe that an offer on the matter should be made to all European States.”

The 20th of december 2007, a tripartite summit between France, Italy and Spaign leaved an inflection, via a modification of the name. The Mediterranean Union becomes the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM).

Question : How does the compromise emerge ?

P. Verluise : On the 3rd of March 2008, on the fringe of the Global Salon for new technologies in Hannover, a Franco-German compromise was found. It has been jointly presented by the French president and the German chancellor at the European Council held between the 13th and the 14th of March 2008. Pierre Pascallon, proposed the following analysis : “We are forced to ascertain that at the end of this laborious bargaining – out of which Germany was left victorious – the project of the Union for the Mediterranean loses almost all its substance by becoming the “Barcelona Process : Union for the Mediterranean”. The proof ? Initially, only the riparian countries could be founding members of the Union ; from this time forward, all the members of the EU – inclusive of non-riparian countries – will be full-rights members of the project, as it is the case in the Barcelona one.” Furthermore, it is less a question of integration than of cooperation. One argument of the EU non-Mediterranean countries for sustaining their concern with the project is that Mediterranean diasporas are residing in their respective countries as well.

Thus, the assumptions of the UfM give rise to divergent opinions. Finally, it appears that the UfM is an opportunity to administer to Paris a “lesson of communitarian good-breeding”. The perspective of the forthcoming French presidency at the EU, during the second semester of 2008, has probably played a role. At this time, it has been important to demonstrate that the non-concerted activism was not present inside the communitarian toolbox.

The European Union had the last word : the Union for the Mediterranean will be just another revival of the Barcelona process. What was presented as a “big vision” for getting off the beaten track of communitarian politics, “too centred on trade”, is simply transformed into a “diluted project”.

Question : Finally, what does the Union for the Mediterranean make us learn ?

P. Verluise : The outsets of the Union for the Mediterranean are instructive for the elaboration of a geopolitical process project inside the European Union. Paris, cannot make abstraction of a genuine consultation with federal Germany [7] and, beyond, with all European countries’ members [8]. Sylvie Goulard observes that : “This case study brings us to reflect upon the type of power that Europe does need : a leadership à la française able to carry the European voice, but also of the collective game à la allemande which would enable to bring in the adhesion of our partners. We must know how to cultivate our European garden. [9]” This does not convey that States must prohibit each others projects, but is does signify that a country member of the EU cannot abstract itself from the defined settled rules.

If the UfM does finally seem in its second year to take off, it is also because French, Italian, Moroccan and Egyptian investors come to complete the means – relatively limited – of the European Union (European Commission, European Investment Bank). We must remind that the countries members of the EU are balking at fixing the communitarian budget above 1% of the GNI (Gross National Income) of the communitarian Europe. It remains to see if this choice does optimize the EU’s opportunities to defend at best its chances within its boundaries as well as beyond them.

Manuscrit clos en juin 2010. Copyright Décembre 2010-Verluise-Dobra/Diploweb.com

[1] Florence Beaugé, L’Union pour la Méditerranée dans l’impasse, Le Monde, Bilan Géostratégique, edition 2010, p. 135.

[2] Europa, The Union for the Mediterranean : Commission increases its contribution to priority projects, IP/09/1113, Brussels, July 10, 2009, p.1. Accessed June 2010 at http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do ?reference=IP/09/1113&format=HTML&aged=0&language=FR&guiLanguage=en

[3] Ibidem, p. 2

[4] Source : Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (France), accessed June 2010 http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/europe_828/union-europeenne-monde_13399/relations-exterieures_853/union-pour-mediterranee_17975/union-pour-mediterranee-conference-sur-eau-barcelone-13.04.10_81611.html

[5] The EIB is as following : "The European Investment Bank was created in 1958 by the Treaty of Rome as an institution of long-term financing of the European Union. The EIB’s mission is to contribute to the integration, balanced development and economic and social cohesion of EU Member States. The EIB raises substantial volumes of funds on capital markets and lend on concessional terms for projects contributing to the achievement of EU objectives. Source : Website of the EIB, accessed June 2010 at http://www.eib.org/about/

[6] Source : Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (France), accessed June 2010 http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/fr/europe_828/union-europeenne-monde_13399/relations-exterieures_853/union-pour-mediterranee_17975/upm-lancement-du-fonds-investissement-inframed-26.05.10_82596.html

[7] Deposit and Consignment, Launch Infrastructure Fund Inframed, May 28, 2010. Consulted on the website of the Deposit and Consignment in June 2010 at http://www.caissedesdepots.fr/actualite/toutes-les-actualites/toutes-les-actualites-hors-menu/lancement-du-fonds-inframed-infrastructure.html

[8] Since the signing of the Elysée Treaty in 1963, we should speak with emotion and conviction about "the Franco-German friendship”. If relations between France and West Germany have fortunately become peaceful, they are complex and often ambiguous. The French lack of enthusiasm at the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall has added a liability size. See Verluise Pierre, 20 ans après la chute du Mur. L’Europe recomposée, Paris Choiseul, 2009. See Chapters 3, 4 and 5.

[9] Goulard, Sylvie, 4 décembre 2008, conference at Lille, extracts of association Connaissance et vie d’aujourd’hui.