Mediterranean Union

Arezki Daoud (North Africa Journal)—Led by president Nicolas Sarkozy, a few senior French strategists have embarked on the daunting task of convincing the countries of the Mediterranean basin to form yet another regional union.

It’s a good idea but it is also one that has many more skeptics than believers. Even the powerful European Union sees this initiative as a distraction from the broader and more urgent European construction and is not likely to fully endorse it.

But for its chief architect Sarkozy, the stakes are enormous. Paris sees a Mediterranean Union (MU) as a way to influence geopolitical and economic events in the vast Mediterranean region. This is a region where France witnessed diminishing influence over time, as competition heightened. More recently, France is seeing its more traditional competitors like the United States joined by new ones like China to challenge what Paris perceived as being its own dominion. Russia has been increasingly aggressive in attempting to position itself in the region as well. And to make things more complicated, the massive investments committed by Gulf countries are creating a new form of competition, with the Arabs becoming ever more present in the region and likely to use their financial muscles to gain more influence.

Just as Russia’s recent focus has been on finding markets for its military equipment and striking deals with oil companies in the region, France also sees the region both from a military eye and from a pure commercial perspective, in particular when dealing with the Southern Med region. A required access to the rest of Africa with its rich mineral resources, Northern Africa has resources of direct commercial interest to France. It is also an emerging market thanks to improvements in the region’s economies, enabling the emergence of a middle class with disposable income and money to spend. This growing middle class is seen by French businesses of all sizes as an opportunity to expand.

From a military standpoint, France no longer sees the region as a cold-war theatre of operation and does not reminisce of its old colonial glories. Old rivalries are gone but new challenges have emerged. It is instead focusing on security, as the region so close to French shores remains unstable and a source of potential trouble. The Islamist insurgencies and illegal immigration are the two most important security factors worrying France. But France, like its European partners, adopted a more regional approach to the security issue. It is broadly handled within another group called 5+5 (five countries from the north of the Mediterranean and five from the south) with the near exclusive focus on terrorism, and in relation to that, organized crime. In contrast, the United States has been pushing for a greater NATO role, although the Pentagon has been much more proactive on its own with American troops monitoring the Sahel. Risks in the southern region are everywhere. Whether it is the never-ending Arab-Israeli conflict, the crisis in Lebanon, the role of Syria, and further east, the growing influence of Iran, amid an exploding Iraq.

Facing these regional conflicts, the European Union, which Sarkozy insists is the lead architect in launching a Mediterranean Union, has not been so able lately to influence events in the Middle East. The Middle Eastern “cards” are exclusively held by Washington.

In the West of the Mediterranean sea, the EU has not even been able to contribute an iota to help solve the Western Sahara conflict which has poisoned relations between Algeria and Morocco, creating a major security vacuum in the region. Tension and distrust between Algeria and Morocco, in particular, are only helping Al-Qaeda strengthen its structures in the region. Using borders that are poorly secured, Al-Qaeda is taking advantage of the lack of cooperation between the two countries to wreak havoc a wage a PR campaign that is clearly in its favor. Victim of the status quo is the long awaited creation of a Maghreb Union, with its promise of a free trade zone and economic growth for all. A market that would have turned the region into a much more interesting and vibrant economic block.

While North Africans feud among themselves, France and Europe are facing divided partners in the south and can influence the individual countries as they see fit and in accordance to their own strategic interests. But in the end, Europe should consider a weak Maghreb as a liability more than a positive outcome to leverage and benefit from. Elsewhere, France’s influence has been dwindling. With Brussels making more decisions, France as a mid-tier military power could not contribute in regional conflicts as much as it did in the past. The crises affecting its own backyard, such as the one involving Greece, Turkey and Cyprus have essentially been contained by NATO, under the direction of the United States. Europe’s position vis-à-vis Turkey has all been about Turkey’s entry into the European Union. France’s new president is adamant about it: for the time being no accession of Turkey into the Euro zone on the ground that the Turks are not European and are Muslims. Their entry, Sarkozy argues, would be a major challenge to Europe’s cultural and political balance.

Washington has a different take arguing in favor of Turkey joining the EU. Such membership would prevent Turkey, a US ally, from becoming an extension of conflicts in the Middle East and Central Asia and taken over by Islamist movements. Joining the EU, Washington argues, means European standards of law will shelter Turkey from becoming another “hot spot.”

Apart from the serious issue of dealing with individual nations and conflicts, Europe is looking at a difficult situation when dealing with demographic problems. While wealthy Europe is characterized by an aging population, the poorer southern shores are home to uncontrolled population growth. Extend it to the rest of conflict-ridden Africa and the demographic tension is likely to exacerbate. Each day ends with news of people dying while attempting to cross the Mediterranean northbound. From Gibraltar to Sicily, the problem is not just a French one. And although a security response is understandable and often necessary, helping the southern economies to expand and perform better should be a strategic priority for Europe, and France at its head. Such economic focus is likely to help thwart a fundamentalist take over of the region. This is an area when Europe and France, in particular, can help more efficiently than the Americans. The initiatives launched by the Americans in the aftermath of September 11, including the so-called Eizenstat initiative, have all failed to deliver on their promises of growth, integration and security. Busy in Iraq, the United States has little resources left to handle other regions.

Europe too has not followed on its promises to improve conditions in the Mediterranean. The partnership drafted by the region’s countries in 1995 in Barcelona, Spain, was based on three areas of cooperation: political (meaning security), economic cooperation, and a partnership on cultural/human issues. All of that remained wishful thinking and strategies with no follow up.

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