Sarkozy pushes Mediterranean Union

The idea of a Mediterranean Union has been around for at least a decade. But the energetic French president has breathed new life into the concept as he's jetted around the region meeting with area leaders in what many analysts see as an attempt to boost France's role as a leader in international relations.

Sarkozy discussed it during meetings with his counterparts in Tunisia and Algeria in a July tour of the Maghreb, talked it up during a working dinner in Slovenia with foreign ministers of EU Mediterranean states, and advertised it during a joint press conference earlier this month with Egypt's Hosni Mubarak.

Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, has now proffered his own plan in an article published earlier this month in the Spanish daily El Pais. He suggested a new union that would have institutions along the lines of the EU such as a council of heads of state, a permanent commission, and even its own bank.

Initially, many observers saw Sarkozy's proposal as a political gambit, aimed at Turkey, whose bid to enter the EU the French leader has vocally opposed. A leading role in a new Mediterranean Union, he suggested, could be a consolation prize for the majority Muslim country.

During his campaign earlier this year, Sarkozy described the "special relationship" that Turkey should have with the EU – not within it. "We must see Europe's relations with Turkey through this Mediterranean Union," Sarkozy said. "If Europe wants to have an identity it must have borders and, therefore, limits."

The Turkish government rejected that idea, and European supporters of a Mediterranean Union have been quick to assure the country that they do not see any new body as an alternative to the EU for Turkey.

Still, the idea of a Mediterranean Union has received a lukewarm reception in Turkey, which has embarked on a painful process of democratic and political reform in an attempt to reach its dream of EU membership.

"Frankly, it looks quite unserious," says Cengiz Aktar, director of the European Union Centre at Bahcesehir University.

Dorothée Schmid, a researcher on Mediterranean issues at the French Institute for International Relations, says French diplomats are working to formulate a more concrete proposal that is likely to be made public sometime in the fall. A Mediterranean project, she suggested, may be a centerpiece of France's presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008.

But she warned that the political climate in the region now may be less conducive to cooperation than in the past, due to increased security issues and heightened international tensions between the Arab world and the West.

Ultimately, too, she says, states must ask themselves whether the Mediterranean is itself a region, or a meeting point between them.

"Is the Mediterranean a region in economic terms, in cultural terms – in any way except for the geographical aspect?" asks Ms. Schmid. "The legitimacy of a Mediterranean frame is quite dubious, I think. Especially on political grounds."

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