March 14, 2008
The EU’s Ho-hum, Moo-Um Summit of March 2008
As European Union summits go, the March 13-14 event in Brussels is turning out to be short, sedate and - dare one say it - soporific. It’s Friday morning now - day two - and the 27 national leaders won’t even be sticking around for a group lunch. People are wandering around the venue, the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, with summit badges, mobile phones and that look on their faces which says: “If 99 per cent of life is just being there, at an EU summit it’s 100 per cent.”
Even French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s performance at a midnight press conference was as thin as a crêpe dentelle. He claimed his fellow EU leaders had welcomed his call for a Mediterranean Union “with great enthusiasm” at a dinner on Thursday evening. But I have run into delegates from at least four countries who say the idea was approved in an “oh, well, let him have his toy if he wants it” sort of way.
The Mediterranean Union (MU, pronounced “Moo”) is one of those EU schemes that you can tell is going nowhere right from the start because of a debate over what to call it. It appears that from now on it is to be known not as the MU but as the Union for the Mediterranean (UM, pronounced “Um”). For the hundreds of millions of people who live on the sea’s shores from Valencia to Tel Aviv, whether it’s Moo or Um cannot make the blindest bit of difference.
The idea behind Moo/Um is to strengthen co-operation between the EU’s 27 member-states and non-EU countries that have a Mediterranean coast, from Morocco and Algeria to Lebanon and Syria. It will reinforce and upgrade the EU’s Barcelona process, which started in 1995 and is generally regarded as, to put it kindly, an underperforming asset.
Why is that? The ever honest José Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, provided an answer this morning to a few reporters over breakfast: “The Barcelona process has at times suffered from negative developments in the Middle East peace process.”
You can say that again, José. At a meeting in November 2005 marking the 10th anniversary of the Barcelona process, the only non-EU leaders who bothered to show up were Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Why Moo/Um should fare any better is hard to see. As things stand, Sarkozy is planning a one-day summit in Paris on July 13 that is supposed to bring together the EU 27 and the North African and Middle Eastern states of the Mediterranean. But it only takes one look at the recent violence in Israel and Gaza over recent weeks to suspect that a repeat of the November 2005 fiasco, with practically no Arab officials showing up, is all too possible.
There is a lesson in all this, if the EU chooses to take it. As Ayman el-Amir wrote two years, what matters are the root causes of conflict between cultures. Moos and Ums are all very well, but the real point is that it’s high time for the EU and its southern Mediterranean neighbours to put aside pious nonsenses about a “dialogue of civilisations” and tackle the hard political issues that divide them.
My initials are M U and am known to my friends as MU (pronounced “Moo”). Would be honoured to share my name with a scheme proposing the expansion of the EU.
Posted by: Mu | March 14th, 2008 at 1:46 pm | Report this commentEurope’s confronting 110 dollars a barrel of foreign oil and gas TODAY -and going up- demands new smart options and more Summits : a deal today with Venezuela,Bolivia and the rest of Latin America for oil and gas , the heavy tar of the Orinoco and the deeps of Bolivia with an honest 60 to 40 % profit share ( 60 for the locals and 40 for the investors)and including Cuba, where Raul Castro is opening mobile phones,laptops and PC’s to the locals,IT’S TIME TO SELL GOODS AND SERVICES INSTEAD OF BOMBING OUR FUTURE CUSTOMERS !!!, the confrontational neocon attitude of the past has created : NOTHING !!! ONLY WARS , DEATH AND DEBT,it’s time for deals also with Russia to start looking for oil and gas in the Arctic Sea under extreme conditions that require team work,Europe and the USA Taxpayers ,nearly bankrupt by incompetent warmongering bourocrats and politicians demand new leadership, new trade deals, new commerce,and because the old bully attitude it’s A WASTE ! will Brussels and Washington see the light? or will they stick with bombs ,threats and fear ?
Look at Sharp in Japan and Suntech in China moving forward to take over Europe on solar thin-film technology, the leaders in Brussels and D.C. must create the tax credit environment where installing solar panels, turbines and hydrogen fuel-cells on every building on the land is solid profit, that’s a Summit’s success, what are they waiting for ?
and about Brussels, the best to Prime Minister Leterme of Belgium ,what a great place for hybrid-electric cars ,bicycles and trucks, for new under-water turbines on the Atlantic and solar panels everywhere.
another Summit issue : on propeller planes, ATR,Bombardier and Airbus CASA and A-400,etc.,in team work, must/can/should come up with an ultra-fuel efficient vertical- take-off and vertical-landing cargo-passenger plane, able to run on synthetic fuels and able to load earth movers, heavy trucks and MRAP’s, a real workhorse, just look at Mitsubishi spending 3 to 5 billion euros on the new regional jet of carbon-fiber composite for 90 people and China also moving forward on the same idea…so composites, fuel efficiency, short airstrips and engines are key to success, what is the Summit doing about this ?
and about housing, Europe must find a way for the young to “rent to buy” cheap simple living units, there must be a better way, a Society that does not solve the basic needs of the young and elderly to live, cannot succeed, we must find a better living solution for all,so they can concentrate on their businesses, on their plans, on their success.
Posted by: blogger | March 29th, 2008 at 8:19 pm | Report this comment