EPP ponders degree of Euro-Med success

Any future cooperation between northern and southern Mediterranean countries should be based on concrete and recognisable projects that will bolster the area's prosperity, such as the environment, water and transport, MEPs from the EPP-ED group heard yesterday.

During a debate on the first of three Study Days of the EPP-ED group in Malta, MEPs pondered the extent to which the Euro-Mediterranean process has been a success - or a failure - in engaging the EU with its southern neighbours.

Some expressed the view that while there had been an active engagement on a political level, little had been achieved by way of concrete projects leading to economic exchange and intercultural understanding.

In his welcome address, Foreign Minister Michael Frendo said that though there has been a lot of fruitful political dialogue within Euro-Med, the issues have been too centred around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "Even though this is a very important issue, there are other avenues which should be explored," Dr Frendo said.

The minister mentioned the possibility of creating a free trade area between the EU and the Maghreb states. Combined with the EU neighbourhood policy instruments, economic integration based on investment should bring about real economic progress and integration in the southern coast of the Mediterranean.

Dr Frendo said energy security and climate change were tremendously challenging areas in which the EU should engage its southern neighbours to balance out its own dependence on Russia. On a cultural level, understanding between north and south could happen if exchange between students and academics were facilitated, for example through networking of universities.

The problem of illegal immigration, Dr Frendo said, was also an issue of paramount importance. Besides impeding the possibility of creating stronger trade links, illegal immigration was distorting what should be a free flow of people travelling legally to Europe and North Africa, a movement which would contribute to mutual economic growth.

At the basis of a need to strengthen financial instruments, including a development bank focused on the Mediterranean, should be the attempt to develop democracy, respect of human rights and understanding realities that are happening in the region. Dr Frendo said fundamentalist views should be taken into account so that moderate governments are not destabilised as this would give the opportunity for extremists to come to the fore.

Influencing the way in which the region develops depends on how actively civil society actors can be brought together.

The speaker who raised a number of reactions from members of the EPP-ED group present for the afternoon session was Tunisian Secretary of State Ben Salem, who said peace and prosperity could be reached if security and solidarity between north and south was achieved. Terrorism, rendered worldwide thanks to an improvement in technology and communications, was irremediably undermining social, cultural and human relationships.

Speaking of illegal immigration, the Tunisian minister said the successful response was not to step up security or intensify sea border patrols as this was a development issue. A framework should be set up whereby southern Mediterranean citizens could work legally in EU countries. An MEP said in response to this suggestion that the EU had not yet successfully achieved a free movement within, so free movement of workers with the Maghreb region would be a rather distant vision.

Claiming that the Barcelona process had failed, Mr Ben Salem said Europe did downplay the importance of its relations with the south when it moved east.

"The projects that are often suggested to us are one-way streets. All of us should honestly and frankly say that EU neighbourhood policy is not the right response to failure of the Euro-Med," he said, expressing Tunisia's willingness to participate in a "true partnership" fashioned in the way which French President Nicolas Sarkozy had expressed when he mentioned the Mediterranean Union.

MEPs emphasised the need to create youth forums and exchanges between students and academics.

Antonio Tajani, MEP, vice president of the EPP responsible for the Euro-Med policy, called on the EPP to be on the forefront of dialogue.

He said that through concrete projects which people from both shores of the Mediterranean could identify with - such as to improve the environment, water resources, facilitate exchange through technology and transport - Europe and its southern neighbours could work together successfully.