The European partnership versus Arab tenacity

The divided Arab countries find themselves compelled to cooperate in the best possible way to benefit from the Euro-Mediterranean partnership. But that "best" way was not good enough. 

The contemporary Europe is not the same one that elaborated the Barcelona initiative ten years ago. Similarly, the Arab countries that welcomed that initiative are no more the same. Then, some applauded this protocol, while others, uncertain about its goals, expressed some doubts about it. The European Union thereafter expanded towards the East, growing away from the South. The strategic center of gravity has then shifted away from the moderate Mediterranean waters.

Did we really take the most out of the prospects that the protocol of Barcelona offered us? First and foremost, rejecting the Euro-Mediterranean partnership seemed irrational when its declared goals looked perfectly plausible. However, the real problem resided in the fact that it imposed on Arab countries to sit with Israel on the same table and to reach with it a certain degree of normalization, while nothing has been done to enforce any of the international resolutions pertaining to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The consequences could have been alleviated had the Arab populations come round to the same opinion. Moreover, these countries could have given a different dimension to the European concept of “integrated development”, had their own experts been able to introduce a development plan up to the level of the funds that Europe was ready to raise.

Multiple paths
Divisions among Arab countries may have constituted the main obstacle in the implementation of the protocol of Barcelona. The Arabs were divided in three main categories: the first one included those who like to operate no matter what, without necessary any cooperation with the others, like Morocco and Tunisia. The second group consisted of those who joined the partnership to avoid being marginalized, namely Algeria, Syria and Lebanon. And the last group involved those who excluded themselves from the initiative and thus turned against it. This would be the case of Libya.

Another factor also differentiates among the Arab partners in regard to the date each one of them joined the partnership. Tunisia for example signed the association agreement in 1995, whereas Syria signed it only in 2005; it is indeed a difference of 10 years, which is practically the age of the partnership itself.

The divisions among the Arab nations prohibited them from fully taking advantage of the partnership financial benefits. According to European statistics, and in the framework of the Meda-1 plan, the European Union wished to mobilize more than 3 billion Euros between 1995 and 1999. However, the countries of the Mediterranean Basin (i.e. Israel and the Arab countries) only used 876 million Euros from it. The Meda-2, from 1999 to 2003, rose up to 2.8 billion Euros, out of which the concerned countries used only 1.6 billion Euros. The main reasons behind that are principally the absence of guarantees, the lack of financial transparency, and the judicial alienations that make the control of public and private cash flows impossible. On the other hand, the partnership operates only in well-informed and open to the world milieus. Moreover, the lack of communication with the small and medium enterprises prevents countries from fully taking advantage of the partnership.

How to take advantage from the ENP?
The success of this policy relies on the ability of Arab countries to be on the same wavelength with the Europeans, in separating for instance between economic and political affairs. The lesson that we should learn from Barcelona in order to take advantage from the new neighborhood policy is to put political and constitutional reforms into effect, since they minimize the political conflicts among Arab countries. This puts us also on the same track that the European countries have adopted in the fifties in order to reach the present union.

Rachid Khashaneh
Analyst
(Excerpts from Cahiers Euromed, 2005)