Adress by the Secretary of State for European Affairs to the Conference “The future of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation”, in Tallin, Estonia
I would like to thank the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia for organising such a timely seminar on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation.
I don’t see the Mediterranean as frontier. I see it as the centre of a shared history - a very old and ancient one - between peoples and civilizations. What we call now the Western or European Civilisation was born in the Mediterranean. So it is a pleasure for me to address this topic here today, with you, on the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Geography has always determined the politics between nations. This is still true in the globalised world. Many things can be done over a click on an optical mouse, but the fact remains that we have to live and get along with our neighbours. In Europe, it took us a great deal of time and suffering to finally come to the conclusion that it is better to prosper together than to fight each other. From 1950 until today, Europe produced one the finest achievements of her history, with decades of peace, freedom and common prosperity, which have been gradually enlarged to all those who meet the criteria to be a part of this project.
But we are not alone in this world. The threats and opportunities of today demand collective political responses, in a spirit of solidarity and cohesion, within the European Union and beyond our common borders. Climate change, economic imbalances, terrorism, migrations, energy security, pandemics, are all examples highlighting our weakness if we were to choose the path of national our regional selfishness.
We are all so intertwined that not even the sea or a different religion can separate us and deviate us from the need to cooperate.
For Portugal – a country of Mediterranean culture and atmosphere with an Atlantic ambition – looking towards the South is a strategic imperative. This is why we support any political initiative aiming at building an area of stability and prosperity along the shores of the Mediterranean.
In 1995, when it was founded, 27 countries participated in the Barcelona Process: 15 on the European Union side and 12 on the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean side. Today, following the successive enlargements of the EU and following Mauritania’s and Albania’s application, it stands at 39 participating countries [1].
As you know, the three main priorities assigned to the Euro-Mediterranean in the founding Barcelona Declaration are:
1. to establish a common area of peace and stability through regular political and security dialogue (also called the political and security pillar);
2. to create an area of shared prosperity through an economic and financial partnership and to gradually establish a Euro-Mediterranean free trade area by 2010 (the economic and financial pillar); and
3. to develop human resources and promote understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies (the social, cultural and human pillar).
Since 2005, concrete activities taking place each year in the framework of the Barcelona Process have been decided on a yearly basis and summarized in work programmes adopted at the annual meeting of Euro-Mediterranean ministers of foreign affairs. Activities that will be implemented in 2008 are described in the so-called Lisbon conclusions, the conclusions of the 9th Euro-Mediterranean meeting of ministers of foreign affairs that took place in Lisbon last November.
Funds are available through a regional cooperation programme to complement activities foreseen in the annual work programmes. To sustain the objectives of the Barcelona process, more than 340 million euros have been made available for the period 2007-2010.
So how can the past 13 years of existence of the Barcelona process be assessed and what is the future of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation? I will start with some positive aspects.
To me, the most notable and significant success of the Barcelona Process so far is the fact that it has managed, for the last 13 years, to bring at the same table countries that would otherwise not come together because of longstanding tensions and territorial conflicts, the most serious and devastating one being of course the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Fostering contacts between representatives of these countries at experts’, senior officials’ or Ministers’ level has created dynamics and can be considered as a first step towards establishing a dialogue and overcoming prejudices. This is already a positive step.
The fact that countries such as Mauritania, Albania, Iraq or Montenegro have applied to become members of or recently joined the Barcelona Process is also a sign that the Barcelona process is perceived positively from the outside.
For these reasons, and also because of the political idea sustaining the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, Portugal has always voiced its support for the Barcelona process and has given it a high political profile during its Presidency last year, while maintaining the door open to new proposals and suggestions.
Some positive results have been achieved by the Euro-Mediterranean partnership during its 13 year of existence. It is virtually impossible to list here all the projects that have been financed and all the concrete outputs of the partnership, but I will give a few examples of successful initiatives.
As you know, one of the main challenges for the Mediterranean region is its prosperity gap with the European Union, the fact that unemployment remains high and the level of investments low.
In the framework of the second pillar of the Barcelona Process, the European Investment Bank’s specific facility for the Mediterranean, the FEMIP, has invested more than 6 Bn Euros over the past 4 years in the region with the help of European cooperation funds to support and stimulate investment. Of course it is a drop in the ocean and much remains to be done, but it is a non-negligible attempt to improve the situation.
Another significant challenge for the European Union is to preserve a common natural asset : the Mediterranean sea. To respond to this challenge Euro-Mediterranean partners launched an initiative called Horizon 2020 to tackle the top sources of Mediterranean pollution by the year 2020. 33 M Euros have been allocated to this initiative in the current European regional cooperation programme, under the Neighbourhood policy umbrella.
Promoting mutual knowledge and understanding is another challenge. The Mediterranean is at the cross-roads of civilisations, as French historian Fernand Braudel put it, and many recent events have shown that dialogue between cultures needs to be improved. To promote such dialogue, Euro-Mediterranean partners have established the Anna Lindh Foundation in the framework of the Barcelona Process, with the specific task of fostering intellectual, cultural and civil society exchanges. However, it is clear that we need a reinforced degree of commitment from all states involved in this Foundation. The human and cultural dimension is a key factor, and in my view we urgently need to give a new impetus to initiatives aiming at getting people to know and better understand each other.
The Erasmus Mundus External Cooperation Window scheme, endowed with a budget of 29 M euros until 2011 to finance scholarships for students from the Euro-Mediterranean area, is, in this regard, an example of a useful existing instrument to promote mutual knowledge.
But let us not fail to see the forest for its tree. In spite of these few successes - and considerable financial means – the general perception on the Barcelona process remains rather grim. So what are the main shortcomings of the Barcelona Process and what should be done differently?
The difficult political context in the Middle East and the persistence of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict in particular, has undoubtedly cast a shadow on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. Unfortunately the prospect of establishing an area of peace and stability remains distant.
Even technical discussions held in the framework of the second and third pillars of the Barcelona Process have often been contaminated by political considerations. Attention has been too often focussed on the political issues, pushing significant and concrete initiatives to the background.
Euro-Mediterranean projects implemented so far suffer from a real lack of visibility and the reasons for this lack of visibility should be analysed carefully when discussing about the future. A question that could be raised is whether current Euro-Mediterranean cooperation programmes are not too wide-ranging and ambitious in terms of priorities. A more focused approach, with limited and well-defined priorities would perhaps bring added value and visibility.
Another question that could be raised is on how to ensure increased co-ownership. Perhaps Euro-Mediterranean partners should work together more to ensure that the priorities and projects selected reflect a real common interest and benefit from the full involvement of all participating countries. It remains to be seen how this can be translated in concrete terms but the general principle that should guide discussions is how to increase involvement and ownership.
The objectives assigned to the Barcelona process in 1995 were probably too ambitious, insofar as they have been affected by external factors such as the tense political context, on which the Barcelona process had little influence. Establishing a common area of peace and stability, creating an area of shared prosperity and promoting understanding between cultures are ambitious long-term objectives that can hardly be achieved in a decade. Setting more modest but attainable objectives could help assess Euro-Mediterranean cooperation for its own merits.
All these aspects surely deserve in-depth discussions and they will certainly be tackled at Council level on the basis of the expected European Commission’s proposals on the Union for the Mediterranean. This opportunity to bring added value and to enrich the Barcelona process, while encompassing all EU Member States and other EUROMED southern countries, is most welcome by my country, as there is undoubtedly room for improvement of the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. Now the challenge is to come up with workable modalities that give Euro-Mediterranean relations the required new impetus.
[1] The 27 EU Member States and Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Mauritania and Albania. Libya has observer status since 1999.