Union for the Mediterranean


The Union for the Mediterranean is an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states from Europe and the Mediterranean Basin: the 27 EU member states and 16 Mediterranean partner countries from North Africa, Western Asia and Southern Europe. It was founded on 13 July 2008 at the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, with an aim of reinforcing the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership that was set up in 1995 as the Barcelona Process. Its general secretariat is located in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
The union has the aim of promoting stability and integration throughout the Mediterranean region. It is a forum for discussing regional strategic issues, based on the principles of shared ownership, shared decision-making and shared responsibility between the two shores of the Mediterranean. Its main goal is to increase both north–south and South-South integration in the Mediterranean region, in order to support the countries' socioeconomic development and ensure stability in the region. The institution, through its course of actions, focuses on two main pillars: fostering human development and promoting sustainable development. To this end, it identifies and supports regional projects and initiatives of different sizes, to which it gives its label, following a consensual decision among the 42 countries.
These projects and initiatives focus on 6 sectors of activity, as mandated by the UfM Member States:
  • Business Development & Employment
  • Higher Education & Research
  • Social & Civil Affairs
  • Energy & Climate Action
  • Transport & Urban Development
  • Water, Environment & Blue Economy

    Members

The members of the Union of the Mediterranean are the following :
Additionally, Libya is an observer state. The UfM has expressed a desire to grant Libya full membership, and Mohamed Abdelaziz, Libya's Foreign Minister from January 2013 to August 2014, once stated that his country is "open" to joining. The Arab League also participates in UfM meetings.

History

Context

Antecedents: Barcelona Process

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, also known as the Barcelona Process, was created in 1995 as a result of the Conference of Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Foreign Affairs held in Barcelona on 27 and 28 November under the Spanish presidency of the EU. The founding act of the Partnership in 1995 and Final Declaration of the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference is called the Barcelona Declaration, which is often used to refer to the Process itself.
The Partnership culminated in a series of attempts by European countries to articulate their relations with their North African and Middle Eastern neighbours: the global Mediterranean policy and the renovated Mediterranean policy.
Javier Solana opened the conference by saying that they were brought together to straighten out the "clash of civilizations" and misunderstandings that there had been between them, and that it "was auspicious" that they had convened on the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade. He described the conference as a process to foster cultural and economic unity in the Mediterranean region. The Barcelona Treaty was drawn up by the 27 countries in attendance, and Solana, who represented Spain as its foreign minister during the country's turn at the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, was credited with the diplomatic accomplishment.
According to the 1995 Barcelona Declaration, the aim of the initiative was summed up as: "turning the Mediterranean basin into an area of dialogue, exchange and cooperation guaranteeing peace, stability and prosperity". The Declaration established the three main objectives of the Partnership, called "baskets" :
  1. Definition of a common area of peace and stability through the reinforcement of political and security dialogue.
  2. Construction of a zone of shared prosperity through an economic and financial partnership and the gradual establishment of a free-trade area.
  3. Rapprochement between peoples through a social, cultural and human partnership aimed at encouraging understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies.
The European Union stated the intention of the partnership was "to strengthen its relations with the countries in the Mashreq and Maghreb regions". Both Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had high praises for Solana's coordination of the Barcelona Process. The Barcelona Process, developed after the Conference in successive annual meetings, is a set of goals designed to lead to a free trade area in the Mediterranean Basin by 2010.
The agenda of the Barcelona Process is:
  • Security and stability in the Mediterranean;
  • Agreeing on shared values and initializing a long-term process for cooperation in the Mediterranean;
  • Promoting democracy, good governance and human rights;
  • Achieving mutually satisfactory trading terms for the region's partners, the "region" consisting of the countries that participated;
  • Establishing a complementary policy to the United States' presence in the Mediterranean.
The Barcelona Process comprises three "baskets", in EU jargon, or strands:
  • economic – to work for shared prosperity in the Mediterranean Region, including the Association Agreements on the bilateral level
  • political – promotion of political values, good governance and democracy
  • cultural – cultural exchange and strengthening civil society
The Euro-Mediterranean free trade area is based on the Barcelona Process and European Neighbourhood Policy. The Agadir Agreement of 2004 is seen as its first building block.
At the time of its creation, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership comprised 27 member countries: 15 from the European Union and 12 Mediterranean countries. As a result of the European Union's enlargements of 2004 and 2007 the number of EU member states grew up to 27, and two of the Mediterranean partner countries—Cyprus and Malta—became part of the European Union. The EU enlargement changed the configuration of the Barcelona Process from "15+12" to "27+10". Albania and Mauritania joined the Barcelona Process in 2007, raising the number of participants to 39.

Euromediterranean Summit 2005

The 10th anniversary Euromediterranean summit was held in Barcelona on 27–28 November 2005. Full members of the Barcelona Process were:
Moreover, the Barcelona Process included 6 countries and institutions participating as permanent observers and invited observers, such as the European Investment Bank, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures, the Economical and Social Committee or the Euromed Economical and Social Councils.
According to the ISN, "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were the only leaders from the Mediterranean countries to attend, while those of Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt were not present."
From the official web site, "The new realities and challenges of the 21st century make it necessary to update the Barcelona Declaration and create a new Action Plan, encompassing four fundamental areas":
  • Peace, Security, Stability, Good Government, and Democracy.
  • Sustainable Economic Development and Reform.
  • Education and Cultural Exchange
  • Justice, Security, Migration, and Social Integration.

    Regional aspects

Regional dialogue represents one of the most innovative aspects of the Partnership, covering at the same time the political, economic and cultural fields. Regional co-operation has a considerable strategic impact as it deals with problems that are common to many Mediterranean Partners while it emphasises the national complementarities.
The multilateral dimension supports and complements the bilateral actions and dialogue taking place under the Association Agreements.
Since 2004 the Mediterranean Partners are also included in the European Neighbourhood Policy and since 2007 are funded via the ENPI.

The Euromed Heritage Programme

As a result of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, the Euromed Heritage program was formed. This program has been active since 1998, and has been involved in programs to identify the cultural heritages of Mediterranean states, promote their preservation, and educate the peoples of partner countries about their cultural heritages.

Response

By some analysts, the process has been declared ineffective. The stalling of the Middle East Peace Process is having an impact on the Barcelona Process and is hindering progress especially in the first basket. The economic basket can be considered a success, and there have been more projects for the exchange on a cultural level and between the peoples in the riparian states. Other criticism is mainly based on the predominant role the European Union is playing. Normally it is the EU that is assessing the state of affairs, which leads to the impression that the North is dictating the South what to do. The question of an enhanced co-ownership of the process has repeatedly been brought up over the last years.
Being a long-term process and much more complex than any other similar project, it may be many years before a final judgment can be made.
Bishara Khader argues that this ambitious European project towards its Mediterranean neighbours has to be understood in a context of optimism. On the one hand, the European Community was undergoing important changes due to the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the beginning of the adhesion negotiations of Eastern and Central European countries. On the other, the Arab–Israeli conflict appeared to be getting closer to achieving peace after the Madrid Conference and the Oslo Accords. As well, Khader states that the Gulf War of 1991, the Algerian crisis and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism throughout the Arab world are also important factors in Europe's new relations with the Mediterranean countries based on security concerns.
Criticism of the Barcelona Process escalated after the celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean Summit in Barcelona in 2005. First, the absence of Heads of State and Government from the Southern Mediterranean countries heavily contrasted with the attendance of the 27 European Union's Heads of State and Government. Second, the lack of consensus to define the term "terrorism" prevented the endorsement of a final declaration. The Palestinian Authority, Ba'athist Syria, and Algeria argued that resistance movements against foreign occupation should not be included in this definition. Nevertheless, a code of conduct on countering terrorism and a five-year work program were approved at Barcelona summit of 2005. both of which are still valid under the Union for the Mediterranean.
For many, the political context surrounding the 2005 summit – the stagnation of the Middle East Peace Process, the US-led war on Iraq, the lack of democratisation in Arab countries, and the war on terror's negative effects on freedoms and human rights, among others—proved for many the inefficiency of the Barcelona Process for fulfilling its objectives of peace, stability and prosperity. Given these circumstances, even politicians that had been engaged with the Barcelona Process since its very beginnings, like the Spanish politician Josep Borrell, expressed their disappointment about the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and its incapacity to deliver results. Critiques from Southern Mediterranean countries blamed the Partnership's failure on Europe's lack of interest towards the Mediterranean in favour of its Eastern neighbourhood; whereas experts from the North accused Southern countries of only being interested on "their own bi-lateral relationship with the EU" while downplaying multilateral policies.
However, many European Union diplomats have defended the validity of the Barcelona Process' framework by arguing that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was the only forum that gathered Israelis and Arabs on equal footing), and identifying as successes the Association Agreements, the Code of Conduct on Countering Terrorism and the establishment of the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures.
In 2006 the first proposals for improving the Partnership's efficiency, visibility and co-ownership arouse, such as establishing a co-presidency system and a permanent secretariat or nominating a "Mr./Ms. Med."