BARCELONA PROCESS: Union for the Mediterranean. This ponderous title for the renewed organisation bringing together 27 European Union member states and 16 neighbouring states from North Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans reflects the difficulties of its birth under France's current EU presidency.
Yesterday it took a step forward by agreeing that its headquarters will be in Barcelona and on a joint framework of leadership.
President Nicolas Sarkozy infuriated northern EU members especially with his proposal for a new Mediterranean Union shortly after his election last year. They suspected it was intended to extend French influence in the region by excluding them and with the effect of diminishing the existing Barcelona Process between the EU and those neighbours founded in 1996. Led by Germany they flatly refused to go along with it, believing it would open the way to a profoundly undesirable tussle over spheres of influence with the EU's neighbours. In response Mr Sarkozy substantially adjusted his plan; he had originally believed it could accommodate Turkey rather than having that country join the EU, which he opposes.
Instead, the new organisation can reinvigorate the old one, as became clear yesterday in the agreements for a two year joint chairmanship by France and Egypt, appointment of a southern secretary general and five deputies to be taken up initially by an Israeli, a Palestinian, an Italian, a Maltese and a Greek. Fresh initiatives on water preservation, energy, education, marine pollution and civil protection are being launched. These structures allow for more joint leadership, including the extended participation of both Israel and the Arab League in a common organisation - one of the more valuable achievements of the existing Barcelona Process.
Overall, the new entity is inserted into the EU's European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), which brings in relations with eastern European and Caucasus states such as Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Existing flexible arrangements allowing differentiated political, cultural and economic relations between the EU and individual Mediterranean ones will continue. The ENP is an unwieldy structure, which badly needs to be developed into a more effective instrument in coming years. That can best be done by linking it to the negotiations with Russia which are now set to be reopened after the Georgian conflict in August. This would provide a more coherent security, political and economic framework for organising relations with the EU's neighbours.