I recently had the honor of being chosen to participate in a UN alliance of civilizations summer school in Malta. Apart from the fact that Malta as a city is breath taking, and the summer school with its organizers, activities and participants was exquisite. The following is to talk about the intellectual part of this esteemed summer school.
‘There is no substitute to history’ for without it we can’t observe the root causes of current events, in accordance with this statement we started our summer school with the subject of the role of the EU in the Mediterranean, historically and realistically speaking eastern Europe wasn’t related to the EU in the past, and the Europe we have today was not possible before the cold war, studying the past one can notice the creation of new wider borders for the EU in that era with its enlargement as new countries joined in, many of countries joined the EU seeking peace and their own interest but one must not forget that the EU is a big economic grouping that affects the whole world specially its neighbors with such a change.New borders mean new neighbors for the EU to deal with, thus changing the Euro Mediterranean partnership ( EMP) neighborhood policy, unfortunately the EU didn’t do well with its southern neighbors while it went along splendidly well with its neighbors on the other side.One must remember that there is no black and white to reality; only shades of grey, but one must also observe that the track record of the EU has been growing worse; as it grew more distant from the mediterranean after its enlargement. That happened through the conditionality of dealing with the EU, seeing that conditions can manipulate the influence of the EU. Not to forget that apart from the EU’s influence on the Mediterranean, the EU’s security is connected to security in other parts of the Mediterranean.
Winds of hope flew over the Mediterranean with the Barcelona process, where the new EU addressed its relationship to the rest of the Mediterranean frankly and made a promise of amendments to this relationship. The declaration moderately painted a portrait of coexistence between the two sides of this sea, noticeably it addressed the Palestinian- Israeli conflict indirectly as it is asked for coexistence between the two sides in one of the preamps, however it made no other approaches to this major conflict, this issue can be seen as an enormous flaw of the declaration and the EU policy. On the other hand it maintained its good approach on other subjects.
The winds of hope soon flew away, as the Barcelona process was covered with dust as it ceased to become mere pieces of paper. And the world witnessed no other EU approaches concerning its relationship with the Mediterranean, for example no mediterranean security arrangements were ever stated. The only place all of the Mediterranean countries met was the UN. On the political side the EU has power that can mend the disputes in the area but makes no approaches and doesn’t take an independent role in them, thus asking the minds of intellectuals over the world to question its interest in these disputes. Most recently as the world fluttered on about the Arab spring the EU made no independent action or political intervention to address it, to the point that it didn’t even meet with any of the Arab leaders to discuss the situation, however the EU merely issued small statements on the subject, these statements can be considered as nothing more than words on paper. This simply supports the statement that the EU holds no unified opinion on matters in the EU’s foreign policy. Simply stated the EU Washed its hands of its fellow neighbors across the sea as it goes through a demographic decline. One can argue that the EU provides some grants and loans to its fellow neighbors, and as observed such help is not sustainable, most recently the EU had shifted some grants to Arab countries, an increase of financing to peace can be noticed.
Another breeze of hope flew over the Mediterranean with Sarkosy’s union for the Mediterranean, however this union received no funding to help it’s development, thus failing to make any progress. These facts lead a person to wonder if the EU is simply following a policy of discrimination? Will the EU stand still as the world asks for peace, stability and prosperity?
ديسلكسيا حسية 