When this article appears in print, I will be in Paris attending a Council of Europe meeting which will be discussing, inter alia, in its external relations sub-committee The ENP – The EU’s neighbourhood policy.
Coming, as such discussion does, 10 years since the inception of the Barcelona process, it will be interesting to find out which way forward the Council of Europe will opt for, particularly since during its recent Warsaw summit it decided to move in a complimentary manner with the EU while avoiding duplication of effort.
In all honesty, although the parties to the Barcelona process have held various ministerial meetings since its inception in 1995, they have very little to show for their efforts, particularly since the whole process has failed to secure visibility and popular support.
The average man in the street, both within the EU as well as on the other side of the Mediterranean, has hardly any idea of what such a process is or was meant to be all about.
Although a number of Mediterranean countries have negotiated association agreements providing for reciprocal free trade with the EU, there is no doubt that the completion of the Euro-Med free trade area will no doubt fail to meet its target date, to the extent that analysts are predicting that it will even be delayed beyond 2015.
Apart from the fact that conflicts in the region have stalled the process, there has been an overall reluctance to implement such agreements, so much so that the impact of the consensus principle has been a negative one so far.
In spite of now trying to focus on the Med., the EU’s neighbourhood policy was established in the hope of offering an alternative to full membership to a number of new Eastern European neighbours. It was only at a later stage that it decided to extend such a partnership to its Mediterranean neighbours.
Even though action plans were drawn up last year with countries ranging from Morocco to Tunisia and Jordan to the Palestinian Territories, the EU has no control over the implementation of such plans in the partner countries.
One sincerely hopes that the urge to push the process forward will be reciprocal.
What I find attractive about such action plans is that they go beyond cooperation that is merely bilateral. If implemented, they could extend beyond economic reform by also delving into such sensitive political issues as election practices and freedom of assembly.
The EU would be mistaken were it to try and impose such changes. The will must come from within the countries concerned, otherwise the whole process of change will prove to be stillborn.
If the EU really wants to send a signal that it means business, it must exert stronger pressure on Israel to withdraw from the Palestinian territories. As things stand, the Israelis consider that it tilts too much towards Palestine (in terms of financial support) while the Palestinians consider it to be politically impotent as a Quartet member.
Particularly since Bush II took over, there has been a strong push to promote “democracy” in the Arab world but even here, double standards seem to have been applied, making one doubt the sincerity of the proposal.
The fear of chaos or a takeover by Islamist extremists does not help matters.
Although such a process, if genuinely implemented, could evolve in a twin track manner, the EU can best help by promoting political stability, by helping welfare standards to rise, as well as by raising environmental standards and lowering unemployment. These are, after all, the main policy objectives of the Barcelona process itself regarding peace, stability and prosperity in the area.
Please do not misunderstand me. I have nothing against the democratisation process. But I personally feel that liberalisation should come forward otherwise we will have countries operating in a state of limbo, just like the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism. And this could turn them into more fertile ground for instability and destabilisation.
When referring to welfare, I do not merely have the purely social infrastructure in mind, but also education and training, which are pivotal keys for development.
A recent study argued that since the EU has an excellent record in setting environmental standards for itself, it should convince at least some of its southern neighbours to adopt similar standards and implement them progressively.
Where allowed – as in the case of Palestine – the EU should send its own election monitors. Palestine should once again prove to be a test case, where there will no doubt be an open democratic struggle between secular and “religious” parties.
I would have thought that when launching its Greater Middle East Initiative with so much pomp, the US would have consulted more with the EU as well as with the countries in the region.
By merely projecting it as a direct response to 9/11 and to the war on terrorism, this could prove to be an abortive process – although I wish it luck.
The US must realise that by going it alone it made things even more difficult, particularly since, rightly or wrongly, it had and still does have an image problem in the area.
If you had to ask me, a sea change can only come about if or once the US is publicly seen as a more neutral power broker in the Arab-Israeli dispute.
Now that things have been launched the way they were, the EU should operate separately, otherwise it will be perceived as an extended arm of the US in the application of its foreign policy– its neighbourhood policy included.
As a member state of the EU, Malta should intensify its contacts with the nine Gulf countries – from Iran to Yemen – while focusing primarily on the six GCC countries.
We should welcome positive winds of change blowing in the area but at the same time we must constantly realise that neither on our own – nor within the EU – can we change certain geostrategical realities.
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Leo Brincat is the main opposition spokesman for Foreign Affairs and IT