Mediterranean Union: What Became of the Barcelona process? (1/5)

In this series of articles, Levant Time traces the genesis, creation, and current operation of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), of which Lebanon is a member. A prospective approach on what the Land of the Cedars could undertake, and the role it can play within this Union, will conclude the series.

The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) is the direct heir to the Barcelona Process, and then to the project launched in 2008 by French President Nicolas Sarkozy under the title of “Mediterranean Union.” This initiative, approved by a large number of actors but rejected, or even criticized, by others – notably the countries of Northern Europe, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who were wary of its outlines and implications – nevertheless presented two essential merits.
The first was to allow the completion of a project, albeit under another name and in another form, but concretizing the creation of a “Union for the Mediterranean.”
The second was to revive, by replacing it, a Barcelona process that was losing momentum, but by reversing its construction logic.

The initial premise was based on the idea that co-development – both North-South and South-South – would create a free trade area for goods and know-how. South-South exchanges, in particular, were intended to help transform this region into a space of peace, cultural development, and social progress. It was presumed that politics would follow.

This is precisely where the novelty and the attempt to revive the Barcelona Process, in another form, lay. While the latter can boast some successes in the economic field, its political and social components failed for a major reason: the difficulty of getting all the countries concerned to dialogue, due in particular to the impossibility of resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to which were added underlying suspicions, especially around sensitive subjects such as immigration.

President Sarkozy believed, not without reason, that the coordinated development of economies through common projects would allow dialogue to reopen at all other levels: political, social, and cultural. This approach immediately dismissed what some wished for, undoubtedly to marginalize this new idea, a proliferation of micro-projects.

The impetus given to structuring projects was intended to offer a new chance to the entire region and, beyond that, to be an exemplary value.

The Mediterranean Union was conceived as an association of member countries of the European Union, primarily the riparian states, and the countries bordering the Mediterranean, with the aim of designing and implementing common projects to foster the economic development of the region and the transformation of this area into a zone of peace.

In 2008, the European Union had just expanded eastward with the accession of its 26th and 27th members, Bulgaria and Romania. Their integration was underway and was expected to be completed in the medium term.
This enlargement, desirable in some respects, nevertheless appeared potentially excessive, at the risk of leading Europe to reconfigure itself into concentric circles, to allow a hard core to advance and to draw the other entities at a sustainable pace. In this perspective, these two countries should not be considered as belonging to the Black Sea area, but rather as the eastern marches of the European Union.

The problems specific to the Black Sea were already very real, and their resolution did not depend, in the short term, on the European Union, but essentially on Russia. They depended above all on the capacity of each riparian state to resolve its internal difficulties, inherited from the implosion of the former USSR, as well as those related to the sometimes decisive presence of minorities.
These issues primarily concerned the ability of these countries to establish democratic practices and to dialogue among themselves, without ignoring their geopolitical constraints and their immediate regional environment.

Since the analysis of the Union for the Mediterranean will be addressed later, it is important not to integrate all the latent or proven problems into the perspective of creating a Union, whether it is first “Mediterranean,” then “for the Mediterranean.” The Mediterranean riparian countries already had enough to do with their own difficulties, without adding more distant problems, whose importance the future would show.
These elements, among others, were sufficient to exclude the Black and Marmara seas from the envisaged perimeter. The Mediterranean adopted will therefore be that of geography textbooks.

Next article: Birth of the Mediterranean Union, an ephemeral project that became the Union for the Mediterranean.