Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-05-Speech-4-014"
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"en.20080605.2.4-014"2
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"Madam President, with his proposals for a Mediterranean Union, President Sarkozy recognised what many knew yet would not admit: that the Barcelona Process – top-down and driven by European interests – was dead in the water, leading our southern partners to opt out and a widening prosperity gap to emerge on either side of the Mediterranean.
If Europe is serious about reversing the failures of the last decade and generating development and security on its southern shores we must now learn to give as well as take. We must build on the ashes of the Barcelona Process – a true partnership based on trust, reciprocity and, above all, mutual respect.
The Mediterranean must not be a cultural dividing line but a meeting place. Joint investment in infrastructure – such as ports, sea links and energy grids – will bring our peoples together far more effectively than the high-sounding declarations which characterised the Barcelona Process.
We need investment in people too. The kind of energy which brought together the French and Germans after the last big war must be invested in bringing Europeans and North Africans together to prevent the next.
The worst possible mistake the French Presidency could make is to commit the European Union – and by extension its citizens – to a grandiose project without providing finance for such cooperation for a number of years down the line. And, as Mr Schulz said, creating a full-blown bureaucratic structure alongside the standing delegations and the External Action Service need not be the way; a focus on values must be.
Despite the worsening situation, particularly in Egypt and Israel, and the fact that we claim such values as the basis of EU foreign policy, references to human rights are mysteriously hard to find in the Commission’s proposals. I hope this is something the Commission will look at.
But, these objections aside, Liberals and Democrats are pleased to show support for this Union for the Mediterranean, with one important caveat: pragmatic cooperation on economic issues must not be a substitute for promoting peace in the Middle East through the common foreign and security policy envisaged in the Lisbon Treaty.
Since the Commissioner recognises the link between economic development and peace, what would be a better sign of peace and goodwill towards our Arab neighbours than abolishing agricultural tariffs? Our much-vaunted free trade agreements have failed to boost living standards because they excluded agriculture and services, which account for two thirds of the GDP in the Middle East and North Africa. If we do not take the produce of these countries, we will end up taking their people. Reforming the CAP, providing a level playing field for goods from the Southern Mediterranean, would go a long way towards tackling the causes of record migration into Europe.
As the inimitable Doctor Johnson once said ‘Life cannot subsist ... but by reciprocal concessions’. And, for the sake of the success of this Union, Europe must make the first move."@en1
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