Big sticks and carrots across the Med

WorldView: "Speaking softly and carrying a big carrot". This parody of the European Union's approach to its Mediterranean neighbours was quoted approvingly by Christian Leffler, head of the commission's policy on the area in Barcelona, ahead of the two-day weekend summit between 35 states there.

He says it is a long game, based on consensus and positive incentives rather than force majeure, in which there will inevitably be setbacks and frustrations.

The EuroMed process has been going for 10 years, combining political, security, economic, social and cultural co-operation. This summit was supposed to reinvent and reinforce it, but a lack of political will exemplified by the non-attendance of eight national leaders and a flawed methodology have frustrated the objective; depriving the occasion of a high-profile breakthrough on terrorism, migration and intercultural dialogue.

Nevertheless most of those involved have good reasons to see it continue and to experiment with new mechanisms in the five-year programme agreed.

Leffler spoke to a seminar for journalists from both sides of the Mediterranean, held to create a network capable of stimulating greater and better informed media contacts and coverage of the whole region.

There was much talk of whether the Barcelona process can offer a better approach to development and managing change than the programme of democratisation launched by the United States after the Iraq war, which threatens a big stick rather than a big carrot.

Arab League secretary general Amr Moussa told us: "We are for reform. We don't want or need to create enemies to be at each others' throats. This is the only process to have been created after long discussion, working by consensus. Because of that it has now to do more than it was originally intended to do".

He supported its commitment to intercultural dialogue and the "alliance of civilisations" proposed last year by Spanish prime minister Jose Luiz Zapatero and now endorsed by EuroMed and the UN as an alternative to their assumed clash after recent Islamist terrorism.

Senior Spanish officials emphasised the 10-year Barcelona process, compared to the two-year US one; EuroMed's budgetary aspect, with €3 billion available each year in aid and loans; the commitment to a free trade zone and a justice, security and migration regime; and the development of cultural interaction with Mediterranean states and peoples which can help create a partnership based on a common vision.

Benita Ferraro-Waldner, EU external relations commissioner, explained how the new european neighbourhood policy (ENP) being developed with 16-plus states to the north, east and south can supplement EuroMed's regional focus.

The ENP reflects mutual interests, since "Europe cannot assure its own stability, security and prosperity without helping our neighbours achieve similar and relative levels of security, stability and prosperity."

Democracy, peace and prosperity go together. The wide 5:1 wealth gap between both shores of the Mediterranean creates instability, and there is an urgent need to tackle associated demographic and educational gaps. Five million new jobs are needed each year to cater for a southern population one-third of which is under 15.

The ENP is more global and differentiated in its approach than EuroMed. It enables the EU to develop bilateral relations, in which there can be a more direct connection between political reform and economic incentives. This will allow some of these states to create closer relations than others with the EU, creating a framework of competitive conditionality which can compensate for the lack of big sticks.

Such states could have 10-15 per cent more aid than more laggardly ones within the EuroMed area. She promised there would be more emphasis on media freedoms in these negotiations, in response to attacks on independent journalists.

This is an ambitious programme, and in principle a progressive one if based on equality. It marks a transition from passive to active engagement, but stops short of hostile containment or regime change of autocratic governments, which would contradict the EU's reliance on soft power.

A substantial commitment to mutual change is needed if the programme is to work; but does it have the necessary economic resources or political will? The EU's financial perspectives for the next seven years are to be decided in coming days, and the latest indications are that there will be further cuts from an already trimmed budget.

This would hit the new central and eastern European member-states hardest, not to mention the EU's neighbours and Mediterranean partners. There is little point in such policies if the EU cannot afford a big carrot.

Thus differentiated engagement could stumble at a financial hurdle on the European side. This would also affect its soft-power leverage. EU enlargement provides a very tangible incentive for painful democratic, economic and judicial reforms.

The neighbourhood policy is challenged to replicate them. Romano Prodi said it should include everything except participation in the EU's institutions. But there is precious little sign among the EU's current leadership of a readiness to back the policy up with real resources.

That makes it more difficult for the dynamic elements in north Africa and the Middle East to harness the relationship with Europe they want to see driving political change in their societies.

As we heard from Algerian, Moroccan, Egyptian and Lebanese journalists there is hope that over the next generation they could reach the levels attained by Spain, Portugal and Greece in the 1980s and 1990s.