Turkey pledges support for Sarkozy's "Club Med"

14/07/2008

Leaders at a Paris summit gave the go-ahead to a revised version of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Mediterranean Union proposal.

By Ayhan Simsek for Southeast European Times -- 14/07/08

Heads of state attend the Union for the Mediterranean founding summit on Sunday (July 13th) at the Grand Palais in Paris. [Getty Images]

At a summit in Paris on Sunday (July 13th), leaders of the EU, North Africa and Middle East agreed to establish a new union to boost co-operation across the Mediterranean. Launched by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently heads the EU, it is meant to build on the bloc's policy -- known as the Barcelona Process -- towards the Mediterranean states.

Sarkozy's original plan had ambitious political goals and was intended to offer an alternative to EU membership for Turkey, which the French leader opposes. However, after much criticism, mainly from Germany, drafters made significant revisions -- including to the Union's name, which is formally the Union for the Mediterranean. Turkey participated in Sunday's summit as an EU candidate country.

"The European and Mediterranean dreams are inseparable," Sarkozy told leaders from 43 nations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. "We will succeed together; we will fail together."

In all, the new regional organisation includes the 27 EU member states and the Balkan countries of Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Turkey, as well as Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Monaco, Morocco, Mauritania, Syria, Tunisia and the Palestinian territories.

Participants said the new union would focus on a series of regional projects such as cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean and devising a solar energy plan, building highways and sea lanes, creating measures to address disasters, developing solar energy and fostering education, research and business.

The organisation will be based on three principles: a political mobilisation at the highest level through summits of heads of state and government every two years; governance on an equal footing, in the form of a North-South co-presidency and a permanent secretariat with equal representation; and a prioritising of concrete projects with a regional dimension.

Sarkozy met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday morning before the summit and thanked him for Turkey's pledge to take an "active role" in the Union for the Mediterranean. Sarkozy reiterated his position not to block Turkey's ongoing negotiations with the EU on chapters that do not foresee a full membership.

Erdogan reiterated the importance of Turkey's continuation of the EU process, despite differences on the final goal of the negotiations, as the process has been an important source of political and economic stability. "The most important lesson we have learned in this geography is that nobody can live in prosperity and security alone. Our historical responsibility is to work together to achieve global peace, security and prosperity," Erdogan said.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Romanian President Traian Basescu pledged their support for the initiative. King Abdullah II of Jordan and King Mohammed VI of Morocco sent representatives. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was the only Arab leader to boycott the meeting.