EU pledges closer ties with Meds

Date: 30/11/1995

By Elizabeth Wise

“EUROPE became less Nordic and more Mediterranean today”, declared Italian Foreign Minister Susanna Agnelli at the end of this week's two-day conference in Barcelona, where 27 countries on the banks of the Mediterranean Sea pledged to draw closer economically, culturally and politically, and to form a “common area of peace and stability”.

Even as NATO is redrawing the western security map by working with former Warsaw Pact states, the Euro-Mediterranean conference proposed a political and security partnership for the EU, North Africa and the Middle East.

Approving a 26-page declaration, the foreign ministers of those countries agreed to “pursue a mutually and effectively verifiable Middle East Zone free of weapons of mass destruction”.

Pledging to stop the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and to adhere to international arms control agreements, they also agreed to “refrain from developing military capacity beyond their legitimate defence requirements”.

The tool for creating a stable zone and southern security cooperation, said French Foreign Minister Hervé de Charette, could be a Euro-Mediterranean stability pact. Modelled on the one launched by former Prime Minister Edouard Balladur, it would be a forum where participating states could iron out their disputes with the sponsorship of EU states.

The ministers agreed to consider it as part of what the declaration called “confidence and security-building measures” for regional peace.

The idea of a stability pact for the region is not a new one. In 1991, Italy and Spain proposed that Mediterranean states should have a structure similar to that provided for Europeans in the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The idea was pushed to the background by the distractions of the Gulf War and faded.

It surfaced again last year when NATO opened its doors to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the Partnership for Peace, with some arguing that Europe's southern flank should have a similar security dialogue with the West.

Pre-empting criticism that the exercise would compete with the Middle East peace process, de Charette said the pact would not try to resolve conflicts already being discussed in other fora. Instead, it would focus on questions that might arise as the peace process draws to a close.

But partners need not wait until complete Middle East peace has been achieved, he said, adding that countries which resumed some dialogue through the peace process could use the pact to launch bilateral or regional cooperation, including cultural and religious exchange projects. The frame, he said, would be gradually filled by accords and projects concluded between members. Eventually, it could be linked in some way to the OSCE, de Charette told his partners. But he later excluded the possibility of bringing the North African and Middle Eastern states into the OSCE.

The declaration approved by the 27 ministers on Tuesday (28 November) went some way towards creating a canvas of OSCE rules for the Mediterranean. Struggles to get Syria, Israel and Lebanon to agree to a common language on terrorism, self determination and arms proliferation - which, until the last minute, threatened to derail the conference itself - produced a declaration including many of the Helsinki Convention provisions.

Although ministers did not sign the declaration, which leaves doubts as to whether it is binding, it was read as a serious political gesture.

While the Balladur stability pact has faded from public view, it did help Hungary and Romania to resolve their dispute over Romanian minorities in Hungary. It also had some success in bringing Russia and the Baltic states together on their minority questions. Other bilateral accords are still being negotiated under its auspices.

Middle Eastern and North African quarrels over occupation forces, self-determination and border disputes may be too large for a Balladur-style pact, and Algeria and Morocco, or

Lebanon and Israel, would be unlikely to want a Swede or a Dutch official to help them resolve their differences.

“We can take care of our own problems ourselves,” said Algerian Foreign Minister Mohamed Salah Dembri. But he added that some of those problems have been exacerbated by Europeans, notably by arms dealers, and therefore do require European collaboration.

US Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat believes it could be useful for conflict resolution. “It could be a constructive addition to the future of a volatile region,” he says.

The Union may have gained some ground in asserting itself in the Middle East peace process at the conference, but much of that was down to pure luck.

While justifiably proud of themselves for persuading Israel, Syria and Lebanon to sit down at the same table for the Euro-Mediterranean conference, EU ministers got a pleasant surprise when new Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak tipped his hat to Farouq al-Shara in Barcelona. Suddenly the conference, which EU officials pledged was not intended as a phase in the peace process, became one.