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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 June 2000 Issue No. 484 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 1 - 7 June 2000 Issue No. 484
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters A slow process
By Dina EzzatForging closer relations with Europe seems to be a priority in Egyptian foreign policy. Egypt says it is keen on a balanced partnership with its northern Mediterranean neighbours. Europeans echo the sentiment, saying they are equally keen on developing a culture of socio-political and economic ties in the Mediterranean region.
Egypt stresses that it wants this partnership to be diverse in nature and based on the emergence of a more unified Europe, but establishing these relations, however essential, is not proving to be easy.
Such was the atmosphere at a Euro-Mediterranean meeting last Thursday in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, where Foreign Minister Amr Moussa took part in so-called think-tank meeting of foreign ministers from the Euro-Mediterranean partnership from 25 to 27 May. The meeting was a forum for the 28 member states of the five-year-old Barcelona Process to exchange ideas, but the results of these assessments were not necessarily positive.
Five years on from the launching of the Barcelona Process, neither the Europeans nor their southern partners are impressed by what has been achieved on any of its three tracks: economic-financial, political and cultural-social. The EU has signed a few association agreements with some of its Mediterranean partners, but other countries still have a way to go before they finish with their agreements. Europe has promised aid for its neighbours to the south, but the money has been tied up in bureaucratic measures on the European side -- and a lack of initiative on the side of some southern Mediterranean states. The peace and security pact for the Mediterranean remains elusive, and cultural cooperation is still very slow. A common understanding on issues of human rights has not been forthcoming. Much remains to be done before the inter-Mediterranean links promised by the Barcelona Process will be reached, senior participants in the Lisbon meeting agreed.
A prerequisite for change is a more keen EU interest, which was not exactly evident in Lisbon last week. Most EU foreign ministers missed the meeting, but EU officials say representation was affected by ministers' engagements with a NATO meeting that took place in Italy on the eve of the Euro-Mediterranean gathering. Southern Mediterranean countries said this is not a good excuse.
Heads of delegations to a Euro-Meditterranean meeting in Lisbon pose for a picture before getting down to business
At this moment, it seems that the EU is more preoccupied with the Balkans than with the south of the Mediterranean. "Foreign Minister Moussa told me about his concern that the EU is preoccupied with the Balkans and is not giving as much attention to the Mediterranean," said Belgian Vice Prime Minister Louis Michel. "I agree with him this should not be the case."
Michel, who headed Belgium's delegation to the Lisbon meeting, was not the only European official to concede a lack of progress on the Barcelona Process list of objectives. However, he was also not the only European official to argue that southern countries need to work harder as well.
Egypt was one country that often came up in this context. Remarks were made about Egypt's failure to sign the association agreement that it had negotiated with the EU. "We are very disappointed that Egypt has not signed this agreement," Chris Patten, the EU commissioner for external affairs, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Egypt said it needed a few clarifications to be made and this was a few weeks ago, and so far we have not received these queries. ... We hope it is only a matter of a few weeks," Patten added.
"Our position remains the same: we are not going to renegotiate the partnership agreement," Moussa told reporters in Lisbon, saying Egypt needed a few more weeks to clarify these points. Egyptian officials promised EU officials that Cairo has not lost its political will to pursue the Barcelona Process. This said, these officials argue that the future of Egyptian-European relations does not have to be strictly confined to the framework of the Barcelona Process.
"We see our relations with Europe as essential, from within or without the Barcelona Process," commented Wafaa Bassim, deputy-assistant foreign minister for European affairs.
It is with this in mind that Egypt, among other southern Mediterranean states, has expressed concern about recent moves by Europe to restructure its defence and strategic policies. "We believe that, being part of the Mediterranean, we are affected by [European plans in this respect] and, therefore, we believe that our views should be taken into consideration," Bassim explained, saying there should be "transparency among the partners on this matter."
The EU has been discussing future joint security plans with NATO. In Lisbon, EU officials argued that NATO has always been present in Europe and that there is nothing that southern countries should be worried about.
"We [probably] need to [talk more] with our southern Mediterranean neighbours to explain to them that what we are having is more of a re-organisation," commented French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine.
Vedrine argued that whatever Europe is doing with NATO should not hamper efforts to draft a pact for peace and security in the Mediterranean zone. France, who will soon be taking over the presidency of the EU, hopes to have a draft on the table before the next official meeting of Euro-Mediterranean foreign ministers in Marseilles next November. If a drafting is successful, France will then call for a summit of the 28 heads of states that are members of the Barcelona Process.
It seems difficult to see the countries of the Mediterranean agreeing on a peace and security pact when Israel is still occupying Arab territories and when peace remains elusive between the Palestinians and Israelis, some Arab officials commented. Arab countries believe they have a lot of inter-coordination to do on this front. In fact, some Arab countries, including Egypt, have chosen to open up dialogues with NATO, although these are in very early stages. NATO, meanwhile, is opening talks with other non-Arab southern Mediterranean states. Considerable progress has been achieved in the NATO-Israel dialogue.
Miguel Moratinos, the EU special envoy for the Middle East, agrees: "We cannot avoid discussing the Middle East peace process within the Barcelona Process; any attempt to compartmentalise these two will not succeed," he said.
Vedrine seems to believe otherwise. "You cannot wait for regional problems and conflicts to be solved [for the pact to materialise]," the French foreign minister said in Lisbon. It would be possible to finalise the pact, he conceded, if Arab-Israeli negotiations were proceeding in a good atmosphere by November.
Nonetheless, even Arab officials who argue that the Barcelona Process "has a life of its own," and that it should not be "made hostage to the fluctuations of the peace process," still find it difficult to envisage a comprehensive security pact in the region when Israel is still occupying Arab territories.
