Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-154"
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"en.20001114.6.2-154"2
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"Mr President, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, I shall have to give my answer before Mr Brok returns from his meeting with the President because I myself will presently have to attend a meeting with the President. We are obliged to do this because of a very heavy schedule.
Cooperation in the field of politics and security, known as the ‘first aspect’ of the Barcelona process is essential, even though we know it is the most sensitive and the longest to implement. There are also, however, the other ‘aspects’ of Barcelona, the economic and financial aspect on the one hand, and the social, cultural and human aspect on the other. This, indeed, leads me to highlight a fundamental principle of the European Union’s Mediterranean policy, and I shall thereby be giving a direct answer to Mr Brok’s question.
I would like to raise the subject of the overall approach of the process of the parallel, balanced development of these three aspects, which underpins the spirit and originality of Barcelona, something we must preserve. And even if it is true that the economic aspect of Barcelona is the one that, despite the delays, is working best, the main thing is that we must not lose sight of this overall approach, without which the process would be consigned to being nothing more than just another free trade area, lacking in political or human vision in the long term and this would be unfortunate. Our Mediterranean partners are our direct neighbours. We have a great deal in common with them, a shared heritage, culture, trade and interests. Finally, as Mr Brok emphasised, we have common challenges, which we must meet together in order to deal with racism, intolerance and xenophobia.
Great prospects are opening up, too, for cooperation in the areas of combating trafficking of all sorts, migration and enhancing the rule of law. We Europeans have experience that we can profitably share. It is furthermore in our own interests to support our partners in their process of structural reforms, upgrading and opening up their economies to competition. In Marseilles, therefore, this new impetus we wish to give the process must be based on all its political and economic components which are, let me reiterate, complementary and inextricably interlinked.
It is true that the Barcelona process and the partnership are ambitious projects requiring resources appropriate to the allotted objectives. Mr Brok mentioned financial resources. They are, of course, never sufficient. The challenges are such, the needs of the southern countries are so great that the resources of the European Union will always appear to be inadequate, especially since the external commitments of the Union have increased to an extraordinary degree in the last few years. This is a debate which, as you know, we have had several times in the Council; a debate which I think I can say lies at the heart of the reform undertaken on the initiative of Commissioner Patten.
The fact remains that the Council, particularly since 1995, has striven to allocate more extensive resources to the Mediterranean region, appropriate to the challenges of the partnership. Since 1995 the French Presidency has made particular efforts in this regard, especially at the European Council in Cannes, where we succeeded in restoring balance between the funding for Mediterranean policy and that properly allocated to the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
This is the spirit in which the MEDA I programme was launched with EUR 3.4 billion committed between 1995 and 1999. The multiannual total must now be established for the period 2000-2006, and I can only hope – although I cannot put a figure on it at this stage – that it will match up to the ambitions of the European Union in its Mediterranean policy.
You are aware that we are attempting at this very moment to reach an agreement between the fifteen Member States, if necessary by holding an Extraordinary Council meeting tomorrow in Marseilles. We have already managed to agree on the arrangements for the MEDA II financial regulation. I feel that the instrument we shall have in future will be more effective, more speedy, more transparent and therefore, ultimately, more credible. The programme’s administration will be simplified, and the rate of reimbursement and payment will be accelerated. Furthermore, there are still the EIB loans, which are essential to the development of our partner countries, particularly its major infrastructure projects.
I feel that with an allocation of several billion euros for the Mediterranean region over the period 2000-2007, we shall be in a position to fulfil the expectations of our partner countries in the South over the next few years, and that is crucial. Today, on the eve of Marseilles, the French Presidency naturally wishes to see the European Union’s Mediterranean priority confirmed, including in financial terms. In fact, it is no longer just a matter, as it was in 1995, of restoring balance with Eastern Europe, but also of making ready for the future enlargement of the European Union.
Let us not forget that Barcelona, like the rest of the European Union’s external relations, forms an integral part of the
and that therefore the candidate countries should make preparations for seeing the Mediterranean countries as privileged partners, since they are the privileged partners of this Europe of ours. This is a major challenge for the Europe of the future, whose centre of gravity will, indeed, be shifting towards the East of the continent, but this need not happen at the expense of relations with the South. In our opinion, this is one more reason to emphasise the Mediterranean dimension of a European Union that wishes to be an actor on the world stage and for which the Mediterranean region must and shall continue to be the ‘uniting sea’ or in Latin the ‘mare nostrum’.
I should like to thank Mr Brok for allowing me to give an assessment of the current state of the European Union’s Mediterranean policy since this is, as you know, the eve of the Fourth Conference of Foreign Ministers from the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, which is to be held in Marseilles.
You will be aware of the importance the French Presidency attaches to enhancing the Mediterranean aspect of the European Union’s external relations. Indeed it has made this one of the priorities of its term in office. It is, moreover, the reason for our insistence on drawing up an assessment of the results of the first five years of implementation of the Barcelona process, in order to be in a position, in Marseilles, to establish the necessary guidelines. Commissioner Patten, whom I must welcome, expressed some interesting avenues for investigation in this respect in his communication on reinvigorating the Barcelona process.
Mr Brok referred to the common strategy on the Mediterranean Region, adopted in Feira in June. This was an important and useful contribution. This, however, unlike the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, which unites the Fifteen Member States with twelve partners on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, is an instrument for discipline within the Union, to some extent, designed to intensify the coherence and coordination of all Community instruments and Member State policies with regard to the Mediterranean region.
Priorities for the implementation of this common strategy have already been established by the Presidency and were presented to the Council of Ministers in September. The Presidency strove particularly to identify areas on which the European Union and its partners of the southern Mediterranean should concentrate their efforts in order to reinvigorate the Barcelona Process, particularly by intensifying political and economic dialogue, improving the effectiveness of Community aid, the implementation of sub-regional cooperation and South-South integration, and even intensifying initiatives in the field of justice and home affairs.
This is indeed also our objective for the Marseilles Conference. In the course of the two days of the meeting, the Presidency aims to succeed in giving a new impetus to the process, with everyone on board. There is probably no need for me to outline in detail the political background of this conference, but I very sincerely believe that the current problems in the Middle East make this Euro-Mediterranean dialogue more essential than ever.
The fact that the situation in the Middle East is difficult at present is not, therefore, a reason to lower our ambitions for the Marseilles conference. I am not, of course, saying that the current situation will have no impact on our meeting. I am thinking in particular of the Charter for Peace and Stability, which was discussed at great length among the 27 partners, but whose adoption probably calls for a regional environment where peace has been established.
Mr Brok, who has now rejoined us, asked questions specifically about the delays noted in negotiations. Should we really use the term ‘delay’? It is true that discussions have been lengthy and occasionally delicate, but I would say that this is understandable, considering the political context in the Middle East. The main thing, in my view, is that work is going forward and that the project is not being abandoned.
In this respect, I believe that the 27 partners are resolved to adopt this text as soon as circumstances permit. Let us not forget that the Barcelona Process is a recent development, only five years old. Indeed, when we instigated the partnership in 1995, we were aware that we were undertaking a long-term project. There was plainly nothing easy about the task of bringing together, overnight, 27 partners as diverse as this against an often tense, and occasionally more than tense political background and within a framework as original as the Barcelona arrangement. Yet, we have managed to maintain dialogue even on occasionally sensitive subjects: stability, terrorism, emigration and human rights, for example. You may rest assured that we fully intend to continue in this way."@en1
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