Euro-Med ministers meet to discuss environment

Date: 20/11/1997

By Simon Coss

AS VIOLENT political turmoil continues to rock North Africa and the Middle East, environment ministers from the region are preparing to meet their EU counterparts to discuss how best to protect the Mediterranean basin's natural resources and wildlife.

Ministers from the 12 countries which signed up to the Euro-Mediterranean (Euro-Med) Partnership with the EU two years ago - Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Malta, Morocco, the Palestinian Authorities, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey - will sit down at the same table in Helsinki next week to discuss drawing up an environmental action plan for the Mediterranean region.

The proposed plan would cover five key policy areas: combating desertification, protecting coastal zones, managing fresh water supplies, waste management and a catch-all category known as 'hot spots', targeting particular national environmental problems.

Critics of next Friday's (28 November) meeting have argued that participants will be engaging in the political equivalent of deciding what colour wallpaper to hang in the front room while their house is falling down.

They point out that as long as many Euro-Med states continue to be traumatised either by violent internal conflict (as evidenced by the continuing chaos in Algeria or this week's terrorist attack on tourists in Egypt), or by a mutual mistrust which risks flaring into open aggression at any moment (as in the case of Israel's volatile relations with Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinians), trying to get the 12 to agree on a common approach towards protecting endangered species of Mediterranean fish somewhat misses the point.

But while many see peace in the region as an obvious precondition for progress in other policy areas, the political situation is not even on the official agenda for next week's meeting, which is being organised by the Finnish government, the European Commission and the Luxembourg presidency.

Supporters of the meeting and of the Euro-Med process in general argue that just getting the 12 countries to talk to each other is an achievement in itself.

Under the 1995 Euro-Med agreement, the EU promised almost 5 billion ecu to fund development projects - including environmental schemes - in the region, matched by loans from the European Investment Bank.

Report of the Second Euro-Med conference on the environment, Helsinki, 26-28.11.97.