A Mediterranean Union in search of an author

All right, so its real name is, now, Union for the Mediterranean (UM). It started out last year as a visionary Mediterranean Union, brain-spawn of its proud auteur, Nicolas Sarkozy. It began this year somewhat stressed, with a new name, and in search of adoptive parents.

France - worldly when it comes to family arrangements - is insisting it is open to all suggestions concerning the closer union it is proposing between Europe and the southern Mediterranean states. Everything is up for consideration.

Alas, prospective parents have been diffident. In a live press conference given jointly with Mr Sarkozy in Cairo last December, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, whose signals are important to other Arab states, was non-committal - and you should have seen the body language.

Then there is a formidable social worker - aka Chancellor Angela Merkel - who has recently had a little chat with Mr Sarkozy about the right kind of parents and upbringing the UM needs. It should include all of the EU, not just the Mediterranean members. No question there. But, in addition, the UM should basically enhance the Barcelona Process - perhaps by focusing on certain issues, like sea pollution, energy and maritime surveillance.

Egypt is hardly stirred by that prescription. In private, its diplomats can even be dismissive. Arab views of the Barcelona Process are markedly low. They are hardly going to take warmly to a UM that enhances a process they see as working to their disadvantage. Can the UM work meaningfully under these conditions?

You can see Mr Sarkozy's problem. The auteur was born free but he is everywhere in chains.

However, his problem is Europe's as well. It is a problem highlighted by the special remit that the UM has been given to address energy issues.

The Malta meeting between the EU and the Arab League elicited a real enthusiasm to cooperate on climate change. Even the Gulf states are interested in alternative and renewable sources of energy. Yet that interest is broad enough to include nuclear energy.

You may have heard of Libya's interest. But other North African countries are interested and so is Egypt.

This interest would be there even if Mr Sarkozy had not toured some of these countries pledging French expertise. There is a revived interest in nuclear energy around the world - in Russia, India, China, not to say Iran...

And in Europe. Finland is proceeding with the building of a nuclear station, despite a majority of people being against it. Even as I write, Mr Sarkozy is meeting Gordon Brown to discuss Anglo-French cooperation on nuclear energy.

Last year, Ms Merkel had stern words to say to Mr Sarkozy on account of his pledge to help Libya acquire civil nuclear power. Europe is split, pitting one environmental risk against another. Some states emphasise the risks to the environment if it is used; others emphasise the risk of disastrous climate change if it is not.

Germany leads the countries that are against nuclear energy in itself, even with the best safety standards. But these countries have an additional worry about safety standards in countries such as those found in the southern Mediterranean.

Whatever this European split means for the UM, however, it will not prevent southern Mediterranean states from acquiring nuclear energy if they want it. So the real question is: How can the UM be structured so that if any state develops nuclear energy the safety concerns of the partner states can be met?

One thing is for sure. If the UM simply ignores nuclear energy in its energy cooperation then it will not be meaningful.

And if it models itself on the Barcelona Process - declaring partnership but adopting a teacher-pupil attitude - then it will fail.

European politicians may be tempted, therefore, to author the UM by copying one of two other scripts from the past.

One would come from the Cold War - when the fear was nuclear energy for military purposes. Here the UM would serve as a kind of Helsinki Pact. EU aid - in funds and expertise - would resemble Cold War aid and "advisors" intended to "Finlandise"' southern Mediterranean states in the "war on terror".

But since al-Qaeda is a very different enemy from the Soviet Union and "Finlandisation" would actually create more civilian hostility in the southern Mediterranean against the West, it is difficult to see how such a model would work.

Another option would be to copy policies from the early years of the "New World Order" that followed the Cold War: Then, states attempting to acquire nuclear power for military purposes were treated as "rogue states"; now, states can be called "rogues" for environmental reasons.

But that did not work then and it will not work now. The hypocrisy and inconsistency might even make things worse.

It is a bit rich to castigate other states for having an Islamist threat and not having Western democratic credentials when Western regional interests in fossil fuels have done so much to create that very situation.

And why them, if no steps are taken against others or even against EU member states themselves? Regional resentment against Europe would grow. Hardly what the UM is intended to achieve.

Established models seem hardly likely to help the UM to work. Maybe that is the idea. No new funds have been allocated, after all. But if the intentions are serious, the EU needs to do some creative institutional thinking to generate the political trust that the governance of the Mediterranean badly needs today. Auteurs of the Mediterranean - unite!

ranierfsadni@europe.com