I have recently met with some key figures from the Mediterranean region. Those were influential people especially when the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) was founded in 2008.
The union was an intergovernmental organization of 43 member states, of which, 27 from 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. Its general secretariat is located in Barcelona, Spain.
The deteriorating conditions in the region and the failure of UfM to impose its strategic presence have caused a great wave of sorrow among the peoples living there.
In addition, the numerous intellectual meetings, which were held at that time, have varnished.
Those meetings were supervised by civil society organizations, universities and economic and geopolitics institutions in the region, as everyone believed that the UfM was an institutional innovation aimed at creating a comprehensive, expanded and flexible mechanism between the countries of the north and south of the Mediterranean.
We now can understand clearly the goals of the recent meeting named “Summit of the Two Shores of the Mediterranean") which was chaired by France’s president Emmanuel Macron and included heads of state or government of the southern European countries of France, Italy, Spain, Malta and Portugal, as well as the North African countries of Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Libya and Mauritania.
The so-called 5+5 format meeting always sought to involve the EU, Germany, organizations concerned with Mediterranean affairs and the leading international economic organizations in the region.
Such a move aimed to prepare a new positive plan for the Mediterranean region, and revitalize cooperation in the western Mediterranean through the implementation of many projects in the field of sustainable human and economic development, in addition to considering the 14 projects selected from 260 projects.
The projects were included under the name of “Mediterranean…New Opportunities”, all of which deal with the digital economy, artificial intelligence, environment, urban development, youth, cultural languages and education.
But those following the France-led summit were disappointed of its modest results due to the organizers’ tendency to drop the political aspect, which was hinted upon in Macron’s closing address.
He attributed the failure of enhancing relations development between the two shores countries to the colonial past of Europe, repercussions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the mass and illegal immigration to the European shores, which resulted in the rise of nationalist movements in European countries, such as France, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, and countries of Central Europe.
The UfM, neither during the tenure of French president of Nicolas Sarkozy nor within the Barcelona process initiative adopted under president Jacques Chirac interested in politics, so the summit adopted two principles, first of which, is to stay away from the UfM’s policy that includes the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
While, the second one calls for setting politics and its problems aside (the war in Libya, the situation in Algeria, terrorism, immigration and entry visas) and focus on many initiatives of civil society, which was enjoying a great influence in Marseille at that time.
In a conference aimed at boosting cooperation between northern and southern Mediterranean countries, French Foreign Minister Jean-Louis Laudrian stressed that the summit was an opportunity to "revive multilateralism”.
Participants from Mauritania, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Spain, Italy, France, Malta and Portugal addressed a range of issues covering sustainable development, education, culture and access to technology, in the presence of foreign ministers from the 10 countries.
They also discussed reviving cooperation and working on a "positive agenda" through the implementation of the joint projects between the countries of the Western Mediterranean.
But…Will all these good intentions be able to turn the wills and decisions that emerged before the 1995 Barcelona Declaration, the UfM in 2008 and the summit of the two shores into facts?
I think this is really difficult to be achieved…
Contributed by Hassanain Tayea.
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