LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Spring 2007

by Juan Prat

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Sir,

Criticising the Barcelona Process for its alleged failures has become somewhat fashionable. The truth is that there is a wide gap between reality and perceptions, as is at times the case with the whole EU integration process. In both cases, some of these misunderstandings stem from a failure to communicate better to the public the results and achievements of the Barcelona Process and its added-value.

Sweden’s Euro-Med Coordinator Ambassador Lars Bjarme gave a very detached and balanced point of view at a seminar in Malta last October: “if we consider the political situation, it is unfair to say that the Barcelona Process has failed. Much more could have been done, of course, but we have to admit that many things were simply not politically possible. And perhaps we should not blame the Barcelona Process for this.”

Critics of the Barcelona Process often ignore the fact that its first success has been its survival. It was created at a time when peace in the region seemed within reach, and the process was expected to collect the peace dividends. Since that time, it has had to endure all the different crises that the region has gone through, but has nevertheless remained the only regional forum where both Israel and its Arab neighbours meet regularly and maintain a constructive dialogue.

Euro-Med ministerial meetings still take place regularly, and high official meetings every month in Brussels. And it is simply not true that the Barcelona Process has failed to yield tangible results. As Fathallah Oualalou, Morocco’s finances and privatisation minister put it recently: “Euro-Med financial cooperation through EU grants plays a key role in providing support to economic reforms in the Mediterranean countries”. He added that it also plays an important role in economic and social infrastructure projects for reducing poverty and achieving sustainable growth.

The idea of establishing a Mediterranean Free Trade Area by 2010 has helped foster a liberalisation process, despite what some have criticised as the EU’s tendency not to respect its market opening commitments. The association agreements that are the core of the Barcelona Process have strengthened the ties between the EU and the Mediterranean countries, whose exports to the EU have since 1990 increased at a yearly rate of 7.2%, as against 4.2% to the rest of the world.

It is another common error to compare the US sponsored Broader Middle East and North Africa Initiative (BMENA), with the Barcelona Process. When it comes to tangible results, the BMENA has to my knowledge yet to deliver, whereas the Barcelona Process can after 11 years point to a long list of achievements. These include a code of conduct on countering terrorism, the first of its kind in the region; the Euro-Mediterranean parliamentary assembly; the Euro-Med non-governmental platform; the incipient Euro-Mediterranean civil protection system; a Model Protocol for the liberalisation of the trade in services; a projected dispute settlement mechanism; the approximation of technical regulations and industrial standards; a pan-European system on the cumulation of origin; the Euro-Mediterranean charter for enterprise and over €18bn in combined MEDA and FEMIP grants since 2000.

Rather than undermining the Barcelona Process and its methods, other initiatives in the region should work out synergies with it and learn from its experience, instead of aspiring to replace it. What we need is more political commitment both from Europe and the leaders of the south, as well as more public involvement. But we shall not get this if we continue criticizing our own initiatives. We must learn from those who strive to transform failure into success so as not to risk transforming our successes into failures.