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In our previous articles, we briefly explored the construction of the Grand Egyptian Museum and highlighted its major role as a research center. We also reviewed some of the extraordinary treasures it houses. But what of its economic, cultural, and national significance for Egypt? One of the Grand Egyptian Museum’s (GEM) primary roles is undoubtedly economic. It aims to attract tourists from across the globe, thereby playing a central part in the country’s economic dynamism. Situated near the Giza pyramids, the GEM is a cornerstone of Egypt’s new tourism strategy, with the goal of drawing up to 30 million visitors annually by 2030. This would place it among the world’s most visited cultural institutions. Such an influx is expected to revitalize ancillary sectors such as hospitality, catering, transport, and even small local businesses, creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs. The economic benefits of such a project would be – and already are – considerable, potentially accounting for up to 12% of Egypt’s GDP, according to preliminary estimates. Experts predict that, between 2025 and 2030, the GEM could contribute 20 to 25% of Egypt’s tourism growth. A Symbol of Cultural Sovereignty "A people who do not teach their history is a people without identity," said François Mitterrand. With the GEM, this statement takes on tangible meaning: for the first time, Egypt is reclaiming its history and its identity. It is the Egyptians themselves who tell their story and take charge of their destiny, and they are rightly proud. Listening to the testimonies of museum specialists and everyday visitors alike reveals the deep national pride the GEM inspires. Thirty-three years after its inception, the Grand Egyptian Museum stands as a monumental achievement for the country, transcending architecture and museology. It demonstrates the nation’s ability to honor its millennia-old heritage while confidently projecting itself into the modern world. By granting unprecedented access to the wonders of ancient Egypt, the GEM serves as a bridge across the ages, transforming the Pharaonic past into a living heritage and a source of inspiration and pride for all of Egypt. Restoring Its Scattered Treasures The positive effects of constructing such a monument were felt immediately. Its inauguration has reignited calls for the return of major Egyptian artefacts held in Western museums, notably the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, the bust of Nefertiti at Berlin’s Neues Museum, and the Dendera Zodiac at the Louvre. Zahi Hawass, Egyptologist and former Minister of Antiquities, aptly noted that Egypt now boasts more than 22 museums meeting the highest international standards. He sought to challenge the common argument that the country lacks the necessary infrastructure to preserve its heritage. The Netherlands, for instance, recently announced the restitution of a 3,500-year-old stone head from the reign of Thutmose III, seized at an art fair in Maastricht in 2022. In conclusion, the construction of the GEM is celebrated in Egypt as a symbol of national unity and renaissance, reflecting the country’s ability to overcome challenges and fully valorize its heritage. It embodies the memory and continuity of Egyptian civilization, while serving as a platform for research and international collaboration in heritage preservation. It also positions Egypt as a leading nation and one of the Middle East’s foremost centers of cultural reference.

If basic decency prevents us from rejoicing even at the death of a monster, it does not prevent a certain sudden lightness from being felt, or even a fleeting sense of relief, upon hearing the news. Rifaat al-Assad is dead. Faced with the retrospective and retroactive feeling of powerlessness and desolation in the face of the worst atrocities in history, one consoles oneself as best one can. Assad takes with him a part of the darkest memory of the contemporary Levant: cities crushed for having screamed too loudly against barbarity, neighborhoods razed to serve as examples. One need only read the testimony of Michel Seurat, who paid for it with his life, to grasp with dread how Hama and Homs, in 1982, became laboratories for Assad’s almost clinical experimentation with death. Lebanon too, from Tripoli to its humiliated margins, paid the price for Rifaat’s inhumanity through his militias, the so-called “Red Knights.” Hafez’s brother was the regime’s designated executioner, its chief butcher, its most brutal and authentic face. A role later assumed with the same feral passion for cruelty by his nephew Maher. This was before France offered Rifaat a gilded exile, and before certain officials honored him with lavish and scandalous dinners. Rifaat’s descent into the dustbin of history strangely coincides with a moment when Syria once again seems tempted by an authoritarian rewriting of its unity, this time under the banner of a territorial “reconquest” led by the regime of Ahmad al-Chareh. After the Druze, after the Alawites, the Kurds are now designated as the next obstacle on the road to a state rebuilt through force and coercion, as though Syrian history, cursed as it may be, were incapable of producing unity except by crushing otherness. The term reconquest is far from neutral. It conveys a vertical conception of sovereignty, in which territory precedes people, and geography and borders disregard the ultimate purpose of the human person. In such a logic, diversity is no longer perceived as a political wealth but as an anomaly, a fundamental defect to be corrected by any means necessary. Syrian Kurds cease to be citizens to be convinced and become a problem to be dealt with, by force if required. This does not mean one should accommodate militias or para-state armed groups. There are clearly parallel agendas seeking to destabilize the new Syrian regime, whether under Israeli, Iranian, or former Assad-loyalist influence. All militias, moreover, commit abuses. But none of this can justify abuses against the civilian population. That distinction is what, in principle, separates authority seeking to restore the state from the arbitrary power of militias. In principle. It must be stated plainly: the crushing of the Sunni majority under Alawite Baathism, with varying degrees of minority acquiescence in the name of a hollow alliance, will not be redeemed by even a tacit revenge against those minorities under the banner of Islamism. What is built on injustice and repression can only produce more injustice and repression. It cannot lay the foundations of legitimate power or true authority. That this orientation pleases Ankara is hardly surprising. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan openly welcomes a Syria that reasserts control over its Kurdish peripheries. The convergence is almost mechanical: a Syrian state recentralized through coercion reassures a Turkish power obsessed with any form of Kurdish autonomy, from Qamishli to Diyarbakir. The alignment is not merely ideological; it is also security-driven. And that is precisely what makes it dangerous. Recent Syrian history has already shown where such shortcuts lead. The Assad regime, father and son alike, not forgetting the “trigger-happy uncle,” endlessly proclaimed national unity while governing through fragmentation, fear, and collective punishment. The “stability” it claimed was that of silence imposed by shabbiha militias, tanks, torture, and camps. Prisons, disappearances, and massacres were its sole source of legitimacy. Here the specter of Rifaat al-Assad returns as a warning. He embodies that moment when a power convinces itself that violence is not only effective but foundational, when the state is reduced to its repressive apparatus and sovereignty to the mere capacity to crush. Syria paid the price for decades. It is time for this to end, without the so-called international community once again looking away. A warning must therefore be addressed to Ahmad al-Chareh, almost as a philosophical reminder. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that one must beware, when fighting monsters, of becoming one, and that whoever gazes long into the abyss will have the abyss gaze back. Governing a shattered country like Syria exposes one precisely to this vertigo: the belief that the end justifies the means. Yet order cannot replace justice, nor can unity be forged at gunpoint. Turning Syria into a new gulag, whether Islamist, Arab-nationalist, or recycled from Baathist reflexes, would be yet another betrayal, added to the many that have marked the country’s modern history. Forced fusion (insihâr) has never produced lasting nations. It produces only anxious states, haunted by their margins and obsessed with their minorities. One need only look at the ruins of the Arab world today to see this. There is in this grim spectacle a moral dimension that cannot be avoided. Since 2011, hundreds of thousands of Syrians have been killed, tortured, or exiled for demanding something disarmingly simple: dignity. These civil revolutionaries, crushed between regime brutality and subsequent radicalizations, demanded neither partition nor revenge. They demanded a modern state governed by the rule of law, one that would recognize them as full political subjects. Their deaths are not background noise to be drowned out by new discourses of order and sovereignty. Their ghosts today listen and watch. They observe every decision taken in their name, every compromise sealed without them, every “reconquest” that forgets why the country rose up in the first place. Syria did not implode from an excess of pluralism and freedom, but from their negation in the name of tyrannical terror. Unifying Syria may indeed be a historical necessity. But there are two ways of doing so. One repeats old mechanisms under new flags: brutal centralization, denial of differences, tactical alliances with regional powers at the expense of internal rights. The other is slower, more fragile, less spectacular. It passes through dialogue with Kurds, Druze, Alawites, Sunnis, Christians; through recognition of their fears and rights; through the construction of a state that protects before it coerces, and perhaps through new internal administrative arrangements, internationally guaranteed against interference by neighboring regimes invoking “strategic necessities” or “vital spaces.” In death, Rifaat al-Assad may finally serve a purpose other than shedding the blood of others. May his disappearance remind us that a new Syria does not need new executioners convinced they act for its good, but leaders capable of resisting the temptation of the abyss. May monsters belong to the past. And may Syrian history finally be written in something other than letters of blood.

Having covered the birth of the Barcelona Process and its development into the Union for the Mediterranean, which marked its expansion, it is worth asking: where does the Union stand today? What has it achieved, and what challenges remain? This article takes stock and offers a snapshot of the situation, along with prospects for 2026. The Barcelona Process is known by three main terms: “process,” “partnership,” and the “Med” in Euromed. These labels reflect the initiative’s goal of fostering cooperation, dialogue, and exchanges between countries forming a Mediterranean community, as well as those closely connected geographically. Later, neighboring countries joined, along with organizations representing sub-regions, such as the EU and the Arab Maghreb Union. Thirty years on, the initiative is far from defunct. Yet, tested by time and events, it had to evolve within a new framework: less ambitious, but more pragmatic and realistic. Euromed was a long-term strategy, ambitious in scope, driven by political dialogue and encompassing cooperation across three pillars. Institutionalization was a success, but results – particularly economic ones – fell short. It became clear that projects should be redirected towards regional initiatives, supported by a more agile and operational institutional structure. While the ambition seemed to have softened, the potential for impact was greater: easier to implement, more effective, and – crucially – more visible to the people. The 2005 Barcelona Summit marked a political turning point: ten years after the partnership’s launch, it aimed to revive it, enhance its visibility and effectiveness, and set a five-year program. The Barcelona Process aimed to involve southern Mediterranean countries in European integration. Yet the ideal scenario – creating a virtuous cycle similar to that seen in Central and Eastern Europe, where trade liberalization spurred institutional reforms beneficial to development – never materialized. The verdict was harsh: the process had stalled. By the mid-2000s, political cooperation among Mediterranean countries was hindered by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while signs of institutional fatigue appeared in the EU. In 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy, then a candidate for the French presidency, proposed a Mediterranean Union limited to coastal states. With strong German backing and support from the European Commission, the plan was widened to avoid alienating non-Mediterranean countries. The initiative became the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), formally adopted at the Paris Summit on 13 July 2008. Its purpose was to rekindle the momentum initiated in 1995 and revive Euromed. This transition effectively extended and revitalized the Barcelona Process, in a pragmatic, operational form with shared governance. Projects, now regional and concrete, cover transport, energy, the environment, education and youth, and gender equality. Since 2010, the UfM, comprising 43 members, has maintained a permanent secretariat in Barcelona. 2025 Review Technical progress and concrete projects – investment pipelines, sectoral initiatives, and academic and youth cooperation – have been achieved. Nevertheless, regional economic integration remains limited. Recurring geopolitical crises – regional conflicts, the fallout from the war in Ukraine, and instability in the Sahel and the Middle East – along with multiple tensions, constitute persistent political and structural challenges. A political relaunch is underway, supported by the New Pact for the Mediterranean , which focuses on three pillars: education, mobility and employment; more integrated and sustainable economies; and security and migration. The OECD and the UfM recognize these advances but stress the need for a more targeted approach and stronger integration. Critics argue that European priorities are overemphasized and that political and financial resources –particularly private investment – remain insufficient to achieve the anticipated transformation, especially for major cross-border projects. Local ownership, civil society involvement, and guarantees for rights are essential to turn initiatives into tangible outcomes. Prospects and Recommendations for 2026 Develop major regional programs in renewable energy, logistics corridors, and technical training; support practical reforms, including trade facilitation, port governance, and recognition of professional qualifications; increase participation from civil society and the local private sector to legitimatize projects and ensure social impact, including employment and rights; implement cooperative resilience measures to prepare for climate, food, and migration risks. The Assessment The Barcelona Process has created a space for dialogue between the two shores of the Mediterranean and facilitated cooperation programs. Projects with social and cultural dimensions, along with the involvement of civil society, are important assets for meeting future challenges. However, the free-trade zone has not been fully realized. Funding remains a major hurdle, as do regional conflicts and the wider Mediterranean context, characterized by migration and instability. In conclusion, the Barcelona Process continues today in a modern form, combining pragmatism, realism, and regional dialogue to deliver concrete projects. The UfM – the Process’s successor –now includes 43 states, which is a success in itself. Future efforts will remain primarily political and financial, focusing on selecting sectoral initiatives and implementing tangible, visible regional integration. Next and final article: an assessment of Lebanon since 1995 and the specific role the country could play in the Union: acting as an initiator and unifying force that would bring together all Lebanese communities in this process. Previous articles: 1/5 Mediterranean Union: what has become of the Barcelona process? 2/5 The Mediterranean idea put to the test of European balances 3/5 A cooperation rich in promises, the Barcelona Process

The Energy Gamble in the Face of Economic Collapse With the signing of the maritime boundary delimitation agreement with Cyprus in 2025, the exploitation of offshore resources is emerging as a potentially decisive lever for reviving Lebanon’s deeply troubled economy. While this agreement has provided a formal legal framework for maritime boundaries, it has not, however, eliminated all the economic and geopolitical challenges. Development delays, persistent regional disputes, and political gridlock present Lebanon with a complex equation: seizing energy opportunities without compromising its national interests. Oil First: From Legal Risk to the Choice of Agreement According to General Khalil Gemayel, an expert in maritime boundary delimitation, Lebanon was convinced that resorting to international maritime courts to resolve the dispute with Cyprus would have transformed the Lebanese oil blocks adjacent to that country—blocks 1, 3, 5, and 8—into disputed zones until a final ruling was issued. Such a situation would have, de facto, led to a considerable delay in exploration operations, as major international oil companies systematically avoided the disputed areas. In this context, the signing of the agreement was seen as a way to remove these zones from legal uncertainty and make them immediately exploitable, without legal obstacles. Legal Clarification, Deferred Exploitation However, Gemayel strongly qualifies this interpretation. He points out that the recent award of Lebanon’s Block 8 granted the TotalEnergies-led consortium a three-year period to decide, based on the results of seismic surveys, whether or not to proceed with drilling a well. According to him, this “open” period could, in practice, prove to be much longer than the time required for a ruling by a competent international court, a ruling that would have guaranteed Lebanon’s rights and definitively, clearly, and unambiguously established its maritime borders with Cyprus, leaving no room for interpretation. Limited Legal Gains in a Complex Diplomatic Environment Gemayel does not expect the agreement to significantly contribute to strengthening Lebanon’s legal or diplomatic stability. He believes the agreement was concluded without the involvement of a key player in border demarcation, namely Syria. He also emphasizes that Turkey rejects any infringement on the rights of Turkish Cypriots in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Turkey and Syria: Absent but Decisive Actors He warns that Turkey, through the presence of its military vessels, is effectively preventing any oil company from conducting exploration activities in areas it considers to fall under the rights of Turkish Cypriots. This reality, combined with the unresolved maritime dispute with Syria, could pose both a practical and political risk to the effective implementation of the agreement. The Outstanding Tripartite Point: A Border Time Bomb Gemayel emphasizes that the agreement left the issue of Tripartite Point No. 7 (Syria – Cyprus – Lebanon) unresolved, pending the completion of the delimitation with Syria. However, according to him, the problem runs much deeper. Damascus considers the disputed maritime zone with Lebanon to extend from Lebanese Point No. 5 in the south to Point No. 7 in the north, covering a contested area estimated at approximately one thousand square kilometers. Gemayel warns that this situation could eventually become a genuine strategic problem for Lebanon. The necessary roadmap: accelerate delimitation and compensate for losses In light of these factors, Gemayel believes that Lebanon must, as a priority, accelerate the resolution of the maritime dispute with Syria in order to definitively establish its northern borders. He also calls for expediting the allocation and exploitation of Lebanese oil blocks adjacent to Cyprus, with the aim of compensating for some of the losses incurred by an agreement that he considers fundamentally unbalanced. Strategic analysis of the agreement: three key lessons While Gemayel's statements clearly highlight the legal and geopolitical risks, a strategic analysis reveals three major observations: Rapid investments, temporal uncertainty 1. The short-term economic priority: Lebanon has chosen to remove legal obstacles in order to reassure investors and quickly attract oil companies. However, this approach did not allow for immediate exploitation of resources, particularly due to the long delayi. granted for block 8. Regional conflicts resurface at sea 2. Persistent regional threats: Disputes with Syria and Turkey's refusal to recognize the rights of Turkish Cypriots expose Lebanon to recurring risks that could hinder exploration and production. The agreement provides a legal framework but offers no real protection against political or military tensions. Defined borders, fragile sovereignty 3. A fragile internal balance: The agreement reflects a swift political decision, but it leaves Lebanon with legally defined borders while remaining vulnerable to future disputes. This situation reduces the country's room for maneuver in future negotiations and weighs on the expected economic benefits. Conclusion: A legal agreement without strategic guarantees Ultimately, the agreement with Cyprus offers Lebanon formal stability and a legal framework, but exposes it to major strategic challenges. The success of this agreement as a tool for economic sovereignty and energy security will depend on Lebanon's ability to quickly resolve its dispute with Syria, accelerate exploration operations, and prudently manage its regional relations, thereby transforming a mere legal text into a genuine opportunity for the national economy and the energy sector. Previous article: Lebanon-Cyprus EEZ: Between Legal Gains and Maritime Losses

In the first part of this analysis, we began by contrasting the two visions of Europe as seen by its founders, in the aftermath of the Second World War, particularly Robert Schuman, and as it exists today, deprived of its founding impetus and obscuring its Christian and Greco-Roman roots. Here is the second part, based on an analysis by the philosopher Chantal Delsol, who has just published a book on the "Old Continent". In The Insurrection of Particularities, Chantal Delsol draws a severe conclusion of a gradual departure from this founding spirit. According to her, contemporary Europe has substituted an ideology of neutrality for heritage, administration for culture, and abstract individualism for Christian anthropology. By claiming to base itself exclusively on universal norms detached from all tradition, it has progressively delegitimized the concrete affiliations – nations, cultures, religions, ways of life – which nevertheless structured the European space. From this evolution arises what Delsol calls an “insurrection of particularities”. Peoples and identities rebel against a Europe perceived as distant, normative, and indifferent to particularities. Where Schuman saw nations as necessary mediators for peace, contemporary Europe tends to consider them as survivals to be overcome. This rejection produces a paradox: by wanting to abolish differences in the name of the universal, it провоkes their return in the form of tensions, identity retrenchments, and fractures. This cultural crisis is now compounded by a major geopolitical crisis, brutally revealed by the war in Ukraine. The return of a high-intensity conflict on European soil acts as a revealer: Europe, which had built itself on the refusal of war, discovers that it has also forgotten how to think about power, defense, and conflictuality. The illusion of a definitively pacified continent, governed solely by law and commerce, collapses in the face of historical reality. The Ukrainian conflict highlights the limitations of European military capabilities, long neglected in the name of a pacifism that has become structural. Dependent on NATO and, ultimately, on the United States for its security, Europe struggles to conceive of itself as an autonomous strategic actor. This military weakness is not merely technical: it is the symptom of a deeper, cultural and political disarmament. A continent that no longer knows what it is, nor what it wants to defend, logically struggles to accept the idea of force. This fragility also appears in other geopolitical issues, such as the debates sparked by American ambitions regarding Greenland. The "Old Continent", once the world's center of gravity, sometimes seems to become an object of covetousness rather than a sovereign subject of history. Here again, strategic weakening reflects the erosion of civilizational consciousness. For Chantal Delsol, Europe has forgotten what made it unique: the ability to articulate the universal and the particular. By breaking with Christianity as a cultural foundation — not as a state religion, but as a vision of man and the world — it has lost its principle of internal unity. The insurrection of particularities is therefore not an accidental deviation, but the logical consequence of this amnesia. The confrontation between Schuman and Delsol thus reveals a decisive alternative. Where post-war Christian democracy made memory - of "Never again" - a driving force for construction, contemporary Europe seems to want to base itself on forgetting. However, a continent that no longer knows where it comes from, nor what it wanted to avoid, finds itself vulnerable, both internally and in the face of external power dynamics. Perhaps the war in Ukraine tragically invites us to rediscover Schuman's founding intuition: a Europe aware of its limits, faithful to its heritage, capable of uniting without erasing, of defending itself without denying the soul that gave it birth and the history that shaped it. Previous article: The "Old Continent" between founding memory and civilizational disarmament

Third article in our series of articles on the Euro-Mediterranean partnership: the Barcelona Process, its evolutions, its funding, and its replacement from 2008 by the Mediterranean Union, which became the Union for the Mediterranean The Mediterranean, rich in cultures, an space of interconnection, a crossroads of civilizations, is a group of countries sharing a heritage, in which their different cultures have enriched each other. Relations have extended to economic and scientific exchanges. This unique identity has fostered the creation of networks that endure against a backdrop of a feeling of regional unity. The European Union proposed a framework for multilateral cooperation with all the countries of the Mediterranean basin, initiating a new phase in their relations, addressing for the first time economic, social, human, cultural aspects and common security issues. This partnership was concretized by the adoption of a declaration at the Barcelona Conference (November 27 and 28, 1995) by EU member states and the twelve Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPCs): Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, Syria (suspended since May 2011), Tunisia, Turkey, the Palestinian Authority and, as an observer, Mauritania. The League of Arab States and the Arab Maghreb Union (AMU) were invited. The final declaration of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference was the start of what was called the "Barcelona Process" or "Euro-Mediterranean Partnership" (EMP), also known as "Euromed". Its objectives and modalities are structured around three main components: political and security cooperation with the aim of defining a common area of peace and stability, economic and financial cooperation for the construction of a zone of shared prosperity, cultural and social cooperation to foster understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies. The ultimate objective was thus to create a zone of shared prosperity within a Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area (EMFTA), which was initiated in the framework of the UfM in 2010. The financial instrument of this Euro-Mediterranean policy was the EU's MEDA program (Financial and Technical Accompanying Measures) for the implementation of the Euro-Mediterranean partnership and its activities. From January 1, 2007, the European Neighborhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) took over. Ten EU partner countries benefited, through the MEDA program, from funds from the European Investment Bank. This conference and the adopted declaration laid the foundations for a process aimed at achieving a multilateral framework for dialogue and cooperation between the EU and the Mediterranean third countries, also allowing for the definition of a work program: Within the framework of the political and security partnership, members undertake to support a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement of conflicts in the Middle East, based in particular on the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Within the framework of the economic and financial partnership, the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area is governed by Euro-Mediterranean association agreements and free trade agreements between the MPCs. These agreements are concluded in compliance with the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Partners define priorities for facilitating the establishment of the FTA and must also set cooperation priorities concerning transport infrastructure, the development of information technologies and the modernization of telecommunications. Regarding the social, cultural and human partnership, members cooperate with the aim of developing human resources and fostering understanding between cultures and exchanges between civil societies. In 2005, with the aim of strengthening and tightening the links of the partnership while reaffirming and developing its objectives, which thus gain depth, the objective of establishing a free trade area between all Euromed countries was affirmed. This partnership, based on peaceful relations between all member states who share common interests as well as a long history of mutual exchanges, extends to immigration and the fight against terrorism, which become priority areas. The Barcelona Process, launched in 1995, is a unique and ambitious initiative that laid the foundations for a new regional partnership within the framework of Euro-Mediterranean cooperation. The partnership was implemented in 2008 with the establishment of the Union for the Mediterranean. November 2025 marked the 30th anniversary of the Barcelona Process, a historic initiative for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation launched in 1995 with the hope of shared peace in the Middle East. This initiative brought together countries from both sides of the Mediterranean to strengthen their ties and address common challenges in political, economic, cultural, social, and environmental fields. The Barcelona Process paved the way for the creation of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) in 2008, consolidating a spirit of regional cooperation that endures today. The conflict in the Middle East has proven that the stability of the region is crucial for global security, and any crisis within or around it inevitably reverberates worldwide. Furthermore, the region faces growing economic disparities, a deepening climate emergency, social fragility, and significant vulnerability. In such a critical context, it is important to ask whether sufficient efforts have been made over the past thirty years to strengthen regional and multilateral cooperation frameworks to address common challenges. Next article: the Union for the Mediterranean, general assessment since 1995 and, without hiding the obstacles, will offer perspectives for 2026 Previous articles: 1/5 Mediterranean Union: what has become of the Barcelona process? 2/5 The Mediterranean idea put to the test of European balances