Nicolas Sarkozy Launches Mediterranean Union to Unite Arabs, Israelis, Southern Europeans But Upsets Angela Merkel

FRANCE 24, July 14, 2008

Paris hosts Mediterranean summit
Saturday 12 July 2008

French President Nicolas Sarkozy chaired an historical news conference, accompanied by the Presidents of Syria and Lebanon, as they made the first steps toward future diplomatic relations, ahead of Sunday's Mediterranean summit. (Story by R. Ranucci)

Saturday 12 July 2008
By Tahar Hani (text) / FRANCE 24

Back in February 2007 when he was still a presidential candidate, Nicolas Sarkozy launched the idea of a new political and economic entity dubbed the Mediterranean Union. The new organization would bring several countries from the south shore of the Mediterranean together with their European neighbours.

But this first version of the project failed to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who suspected Sarkozy of wanting to create a political dynamic in the South that would compete with that of the European Union (EU).

From the ‘Mediterranean Union’ to the ‘Union for the Mediterranean’

Under the pressure of Germany, who didn’t want to be sidetracked and see its influence diminish, Sarkozy reviewed his proposal. Berlin’s expectations was that every single EU member be considered a full member of the new body (39 countries in total) and that the European Commission remained the driving force behind it. Over just a few meetings, the Mediterranean Union became the Union for the Mediterranean. A change in wording that was significant, says Baorhan Ghalioum, a professor of political sociology at the Sorbonne-Nouvelle University in Paris. "The new project, once amended on the basis of the changes asked by Merkel and the European Commission, is nothing else but an improved version of the Barcelona Process,” he said.

Ghalioun considers that the UFM’s economic ambitions aren’t up to the expectations of the populations that make it up. "The UFM can’t be reduced to a few technical projects such as the fight against pollution and the construction of a highway that would link the whole of North Africa,” he said. It was a strategic mistake to conceive the UFM project in such a unilateral way and without consulting its European partners, Ghalioun concluded.

North Africa in favour of the Sarkozy initiative

The countries of North Africa welcomed the Sarkozy initiative. Morocco sees many advantages, both economic and political. According to Jawad Kerkoudi, head of the Moroccan Institute on International Relations (IMRI), Morocco “would like the UFM to play an active role in solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Morocco-Algeria rivalry over Moroccan Sahara.” On an economic level, “the UFM financial aid would be much appreciated,” he added.

Tunisia, which is well positioned to house the headquarters of the General Secretariat, supported the French idea from the very beginning. Algeria finally ended up maintaining its participation, a decision Sarkozy announced himself. Libya was the only one to react angrily at the project. Muammar Gaddafi called it “a humiliation of sorts.”

“We’re neither famished nor dogs for them to throw bones at us,” he declared.

“The Turkish headache”

Whether Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will come or not is one of the clues that France hasn’t yet managed to solve. Turkey has been engaged in negotiations to join the EU since 2005 and now sees the UFM as a way for France to close the door to it.

According to Hasni Abidi, head of the Geneva-based Centre for the Study and Research on the Arab World and the Mediterranean, “Turkey will never be content with a solution that amounts to a dead end instead of a full seat within the EU.”

Even if Sarkozy managed to convince more than 30 heads of state and government to take a seat beside Bashar al-Assad and Ehud Olmert, it doesn’t mean he succeeded, says Didier Peillon from the French Institute of International and Strategic Relations (IRIS.) “The UFM can’t go beyond the ambitions displayed by the Barcelona Process, in particular because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and of all the problems that belong to North Africa itself,” Peillon added. “The only positive aspect of the summit is that it prompted new debate on the Mediterranean,” he concluded.

Is Merkel Getting on Sarkozy's Nerves?

Spiegel, July 11, 2008

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel aren't as enamoured of each other as their smiles and embraces might suggest. The charismatic Sarkozy has irked Berlin with his budget policies and his recent rescue mission to Libya. And Merkel and her ministers aren't flavor of the month in Paris either.

Sarkozy and Merkel were very chummy in front of the cameras when they met near Berlin on Monday. But things are apparently very different behind the scenes.

How warmly they embraced each other at Monday's meeting in Meseberg palace north of Berlin. Kissy-kissy for the cameras, Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy were all smiles.

Behind the scenes, however, relations between the two leaders appear to be cooling. Merkel is reported to be getting on Sarkozy's nerves and the German government was deeply unimpressed with his go-it-alone (more...) strategy to get Libya to release the Bulgarian nurses it had held for eight years.

German newspaper Rheinische Post reported Tuesday that Sarkozy was miffed by German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück who accused him at a July meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels of handing out generous tax gifts to his voters rather than sticking to EU-agreed savings programs.

"How dare you talk to me in that tone," Sarkozy is reported to have snapped back at the minister, and he's believed to be smarting at Merkel for not giving her minister a public dressing down.

Merkel is "getting on Sarkozy's nerves," Rheinische Post quoted an unnamed member of Sarkozy's UMP party as saying. Perhaps it's not surprising given that the two are like chalk and cheese -- the ever-cautious Merkel and the hyperactive, impatient Sarkozy.

Monday's meeting in Meseberg, a regular informal get-together between the French and German governments, also exposed tensions over nuclear policy between France and Germany -- and within Merkel's coalition government.

"Nuclear energy is the energy of the future," Sarkozy declared at the news conference after the meeting. In a reference to France's policy of meeting most of its electricity needs through nuclear power, he said, "I would be happy if Germany followed similar ambitions." It would be difficult if "Germany decides one way and France another," he said.

France currently obtains almost 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, while Germany is committed to phasing out its nuclear reactors by 2021. Merkel's government coalition partner, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), have remained steadfast in their insistence on maintaining the phase-out, but the chancellor has recently been seeking to sway public opinion towards nuclear power. (more...)

Merkel called Monday for the continuation of the cooperation between the German company Siemens and the French firm Areva in nuclear power. Germany had an interest in a cooperation which was as deep as possible, she said.

German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who belongs to the SPD, sees things very differently from Sarkozy, however. "Nuclear energy is anything but a future technology," he told the German daily Tagesspiegel. "Around the world more nuclear power stations are being shut down than built." Gabriel recently called for Germany's seven oldest reactors to be immediately shut down (more...) in what some saw as an attempt to get out of Merkel's shadow when it came to environmental policies.

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Merkel Slams Sarkozy's 'Club Med' Plans

Spiegel, July 11, 2008

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out strongly against French President Nicolas Sarkozy's vision of a Mediterranean Union. Merkel believes the proposed bloc poses a risk to the EU's core and could release "explosive forces."

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, seen here surveying the town of Algiers during his trip to Algeria this week, has grand plans for the Mediterranean.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is traveling to Paris Thursday evening to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a day after she slammed his plans for a Mediterranean Union.

Speaking at a conference in Berlin Wednesday, Merkel attacked Sarkozy's vision for an association of Mediterranean nations as being "very dangerous." The German chancellor used unusually harsh language to warn the French president against splitting the very core of the European Union with his vision of a Paris-led alternative union -- and one from which Germany would be excluded.

Merkel said she was highly skeptical of Sarkozy's plans and insisted that any cooperation with the EU's neighbors must include all EU member states. Otherwise, she warned, Germany could, for example, form an Eastern European Union with Ukraine and other countries. These types of developments would threaten the cohesion and unity of the EU, she said. She warned that allowing a separate association with access to the EU coffers could lead to a "corrosion of the EU in its core area" and release "explosive forces in the EU that I would not like to see."

"One thing has to be clear," she said. "Northern Europeans also share responsibility for the Mediterranean, just as the the future of the borders with Russia and Ukraine is an issue that concerns those living on the Mediterranean."

On Wednesday, the French president announced that he wanted France and Algeria, a former French colony, to form the axis of a future Mediterranean Union stretching from Morocco to Turkey and including just seven EU states. Speaking on the third day of a state visit to the North African country, Sarkozy said he saw the creation of a union of Mediterranean states as a way to heal the wounds of the past, in the same way that the EU had done 60 years ago between France and Germany.

Sarkozy had already proposed his vision, which the French press has dubbed "Club Med," during the presidential election campaign earlier this year. And his enthusiasm for the idea seems far from diminished.

However, the European Commission is unimpressed with Sarkozy's Mediterranean shennanigans, fearing they could undermine the 12-year Barcelona process aimed at promoting dialogue between the EU and 10 neighboring countries. There are also suspicions in Brussels that the French president's true motive is to prevent Turkey from pursuing its bid to join the EU.

The French president's tendency to go it alone (more...) has already raised hackles in Germany, particularly his trip to Libya (more...) in July after the release of five Bulgarian nurses, when he signed five agreements -- including one on nuclear energy -- with the Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

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