Forging Sarkozy's Med. initiative

From the very moment that Nicolas Sarkozy launched the idea of a Mediterranean Union drawing from the historical experience of European integration, the challenge was always to see how you could reconcile having a Mediterranean Union in which the northern shores of the Mediterranean had states which also belonged to the European Union which, in turn, was a Union made up of 27 states many of which were not Mediterranean states.

It was a bold and laudable effort to turn the attention to the Mediterranean region where, as he had put it in his Tangiers speech, "everything will be won or everything lost". In one masterstroke, France had shown that, alongside its continental (and now Atlantic) foreign policy focus, it had not forgotten its Mediterranean role as the largest EU member state facing the Mediterranean and as the EU member state with deeply-rooted historical relations with North Africa and the Middle East. In this, there is no doubt that President Sarkozy succeeded to draw attention to the Mediterranean region and his continued efforts to bring about the Union pour la Mediterranée keep on sharpening this focus.

Although, immediately, within the EU Foreign Minister circles I discerned dissenting noises with regard to this "divisive" idea, from Malta's point of view the idea of the states bordering the Mediterranean coming together to concentrate on their issues and serving as a spearhead in the catalytic process of change immediately provided a tremendous opportunity: PAM, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean with its secretariat in St Julians, was a natural fit as one of its bodies.

Setting up this Assembly, and, in Jordan in September 2006, clinching the seat of its Secretariat in Malta, was a concerted effort of parliamentary and governmental diplomacy of many unsung Maltese parliamentarians including, at the fore, Helen D'Amato, the then Speaker Anton Tabone and myself as then Foreign Minister, persuading and lobbying Mediterranean countries. The process goes back at least to the IPU Santiago de Chile meeting in October 1991 in which I participated with then Speaker Lawrence Gonzi, Dom Mintoff and Alex Sceberras Trigona.

In many one-on-one meetings, and in various fora, I immediately made it very clear that our support in the debate for the creation of a Mediterranean Union assumed the inclusion of PAM within its architecture. In Crete, on June 2, 2007, at the 14th Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Mediterranean Forum, the French Minister for European Affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, laid out some ideas relating to the Mediterranean Union to the Foreign Ministers of Greece, Algeria, Egypt, Italy, Malta, France, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and, as a special guest, Libya. In supporting the furtherance of these ideas, I recall that former Maltese Foreign Minister, later President, Guido de Marco at the Malaga First Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean, and later, in 1995, at the Valletta Second Inter-Parliamentary Conference, had called for the setting up of an Association of Mediterranean States in the shape of a Council of the Mediterranean with a ministerial and a parliamentary dimension. A concept of a Council of the Mediterranean rather than of a Mediterranean Union, later changed to Union pour la Mediterranée, would perhaps have been more easily palatable in view of the existing reality in the Baltic Sea represented by the Nordic Council (like PAM consisting of national parliamentarians) and the Nordic Council of Ministers (the forum for Nordic governmental cooperation), the two institutions meeting in a plenary session once a year, and of the inter-governmental Council of the Baltic Sea States composed of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the European Commission complete with its Baltic Sea States Heads of Government Summit.

In this context, I had emphasised that "This Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean must be part of the architecture of any Mediterranean Union". The Mediterranean Union could have provided perfectly fitting clothes for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean, the Union assuming the garb of the governmental aspect of the parliamentary reality already in place in St Julians.

Still it is to be said that President Sarkozy wanted to go beyond the idea of an inter-governmental council and, as illustrated in his October 23, 2007 Tangiers speech, to take the EU historical experience into the Mediterranean Union dimension while seeking to set up a uniquely fashioned Mediterranean Union which, however, is inspired by "what Europe's founding fathers did", that is "Let's forge between us ever-closer practical solidarity on pragmatic projects which involve all our peoples' vital interests". There he also launched the idea of the European Commission being involved directly in the new Union.

He called the Mediterranean Union "a challenge, a challenge for all of us, Mediterranean peoples" deeming that it is "our generation who must make the Mediterranean Union project irreversible".

That was before the concept, following the French-Spanish-Italian summit last December in Rome and the Merkel-Sarkozy meeting last March, developed into an Union pour la Mediterranée and an Union also open to other EU member states with no Mediterranean shores. This concept is now endorsed in the European Council March conclusions which accepted the principle of a Union for the Mediterranean that will include the member states of the EU and the non-EU Mediterranean coastal states.

Clearly, the sands have shifted and one has to draw consequent conclusions in many terms including in terms of the Union's architecture, its make-up and its dove-tailing with the Barcelona Euro-Mediterranean process in which all EU countries are involved with all Mediterranean countries (except Libya). The project-based approach, which goes beyond Barcelona, however remains a focal point of the project. That could, in fact, be a way in which the Union pour la Mediterrannée serves as a catalyst for the Barcelona process taking it forward into a new reality of tangible solidarity between the European Union and the Mediterranean as a whole. Work still needs to be done to crystallise the dove-tailing, complementarity, enhancement.

In expectation of the July Paris Heads of Government Meeting, the Union pour la Mediterranée remains a fresh point of reference of EU-Mediterranean relations and an opportunity for Malta to give its strong contribution with initiatives, such as, for example, the inclusion of the noteworthy Euromediti project as one of the Union launching projects, advancing its foreign policy in the process.

Dr Frendo is a Member of Parliament and served as Malta's Foreign Minister in 2004-2008.