EU-DIGEST

Turkey: The Med at half the price - by Casandra Jardine

Turkey is supposedly the new Greece. It offers similar food, sunshine and beaches but at half the price. Last summer, the high euro meant that Turkey lay at the top of many a holiday wish list, but that wasn’t why I took my family there. We went because my niece was marrying a Turk. Sixteen years ago we had taken our elder two children to Turkey in search of a bucket, spade and classical ruins experience, and had found the coast largely undeveloped. In the interim, tourism has been a major growth industry: resorts that once consisted of a couple of hotels and a lokanta (Turkish for taverna) had turned into great sprawling masses of Lego-brick holiday homes that covered the surrounding hillsides. I gagged when I first saw the transformation, but there’s no point being sentimental – empty beaches are now a rare commodity pretty much anywhere in the Mediterranean.

Labels: EU, Mediterranean region, Tourism, Turkey

EU plan for grand union - by Lorne Cook

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and 42 other leaders were to launch last night a union between Europe and its Mediterranean neighbors but tensions among Middle East countries could undermine their grand plan. Heads of state and government from the 27 European Union nations and an arc of countries running from Morocco to the Balkans representing some 756 million people were expected to endorse the new forum at the Grand Palais on Paris's Champs Elysee."

Labels: Air France, EU, Grand Union, Mediterranean region, Sarkozy

France's Club Med Plan Riddled With Problems

President Nicolas Sarkozy's controversial plan for a Mediterranean Union, expected to be a cornerstone of France's looming EU presidency, is in trouble with experts saying many questions still need to be resolved. Last year French President Nicolas Sarkozy had a vision for an exclusive “Club Med,” in which membership was based solely on a shared Mediterranean coastline. This meant that only EU countries on the 27-nation bloc’s southern flank, such as France, Spain and Italy met the criteria for a geographical grouping that stretches from Morocco to Israel, Syria and Turkey. Sarkozy’s “Mediterranean dream” was supposed to provide a forum for tackling regional issues that ranged from stopping illegal boat migration from Africa and combating terrorism to harnessing solar energy and cleaning up the polluted sea.

But there were numerous problems with the proposal, with Germany playing a key role in torpedoing Sarkozy’s original plan, say EU experts. German chancellor Angela Merkel had insisted that the initiative be anchored within existing EU structures and must include all member states.

It is unclear whether France's enthusiasm for the project will be shared by other EU members.

Labels: EU, France, Mediterranean region, Sarkozy

Financial Instability, Climate and Club Med Dominate EU Talks

Speaking after new figures were released at the close of Asian trading which showed the single currency hitting a new high over $1.56, Sarkozy told the summit that the heads of state and government had every reason to be concerned about market instability. The French president said he was satisfied that the issue had been raised at the summit and that it was now time for action to avert a future financial meltdown. European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso tried to instill calm by telling the summit that the European Central Bank (ECB) would take control of the situation should it be required to. "The ECB will do what is necessary to secure financial stability," Barroso said. The EU also formally backed ambitious French plans for a Union for the Mediterranean, but watered it down to such an extent that it had to be given a new name. According to a last-minute addition to the draft conclusions of their regular spring council in Brussels, the new organization is to be called "Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean." The Barcelona process is the name of the EU's 13-year-old policy which deals with the bloc's southern neighbors and which many critics say has so far failed to deliver.

The latest draft of the proposal, brokered by Germany earlier this week and submitted to leaders over dinner on Thursday, includes all of the EU's member states and vaguely talks about "projects with an accent on regional cooperation."

Labels: Environment: climate change, EU, Mediterranean region

Germany pours cold water on Sarkozy union - by Ian Traynor

President Nicolas Sarkozy was last night forced to back away from an ambitious scheme to launch a French-led "Mediterranean Union" linking the EU's southern states in a political club with the Maghreb, Turkey and Middle Eastern countries including Israel. Sarkozy had planned to launch the bold new union when France took over the presidency of the EU in July, but climbed down after fierce opposition from Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. At an EU summit in Brussels last night, Sarkozy and Merkel jointly proposed a much looser grouping, to be initiated at a summit of EU and Mediterranean countries in Paris in July. Worried that the Sarkozy scheme would split the EU while leaving the wealthier countries of Germany and Scandinavia footing the bill for an exercise in French aggrandisement, Merkel was said to have threatened to boycott the Paris summit unless Sarkozy scaled back his plans.

Labels: EU, Europe, Mediterranean region, Merkel, Sarkozy

Merkel and Sarkozy to dine on brief encounter

Amid friction in the Franco-German relationship, Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to dine Monday with President Nicolas Sarkozy during a brief encounter at the CeBIT computing trade fair. Sarkozy will be in Hanover, Germany to highlight the software prowess of France, which has been appointed this year's "partner nation" of CeBIT, an annual, 75-nation expo that begins Tuesday. The president has regularly flown the flag for French exports, so there was no question of missing the Monday evening ceremonies to launch the fair, which focusses on the computing needs of government and big corporations.

Sarkozy's plan to set up a Mediterranean Union, an organization for southern European Union states to consult with non-EU neighbours, has annoyed Berlin, which objects to a forum where it will be on the outer. Merkel says she supports closer relations in the region but opposes setting up a new organization to manage them.Berlin's warnings against "parallel structures" have been rejected by Sarkozy aides, who say there has been a Council of the Baltic Sea States since 1992 on the EU's northern flank. But the Germans say this is not a valid argument, since most of the nations on that sea are now EU members.

Labels: EU, France, Germany, Mediterranean region, Merkel, Sarkozy

Merkel rebuffs Sarkozy on Mediterranean Union plan-by John Thornhill and Bertrand Benoit

Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, pointedly told France's ruling UMP party yesterday that the future stability of the Mediterranean region affected the whole European Union and that all 27 member states should be involved in the engagement process. Mrs Merkel's comments, at a joint appearance in Paris with French president Nicolas Sarkozy, appeared to be a polite rebuff of his proposals to launch a Mediterranean Union, linking those EU member states that border the sea with their north African neighbours. However, Mrs Merkel said that her CDU party was united with Mr Sarkozy's UMP party - both on the political centre-right - in the view that the EU should offer Turkey a privileged partnership rather than full membership as envisaged by current accession talks.

Labels: EU, Mediterranean region, Merkel, Sarkozy

Labels: EU, France, Mediterranean region, Sarkozy

Sarkozy takes deal-making to North Africa and hits a wall of sceptism - by Charles Bremner

Fresh from “relaunching” Europe, President Sarkozy took his deal-making skills to Algeria today to promote an ambitious plan for a Mediterranean Union

Mr Sarkozy’s scheme for a cross-Mediterranean tie-up similar to the European Union’s common market has hit a wall of scepticism on both sides of the sea and put up backs in Ankara, Beirut and Brussels in particular.

Labels: EU, Mediterranean region, Sarkozy

A European Monroe Doctrine ? Sarkozy's proposal for Mediterranean bloc makes waves - by Katrin Bennhold - by Katrin Bennhold

A proposal by Nicolas Sarkozy to gather the European, Middle Eastern, and North African countries of the strategic Mediterranean rim into an economic community along the lines of the early European Union has begun making waves even before the president-elect takes office.

The initiative, outlined by Sarkozy in a campaign speech in February, went largely unnoticed until he repeated it in his electoral victory address Sunday evening. Plans are still being drawn up, Sarkozy's aides said Thursday, but even at this early stage the proposal has cascading implications for the region.

Labels: France, Mediterranean region

Climate change to hit Europe's Mediterranean region hard, scientists say

Climate change in Europe's Mediterranean region will sap electric power generation, reverse long-standing tourism trends, raise sea levels and leave millions of people with water shortages, scientists said Tuesday. Mediterranean ecosystems are among the world's most sensitive and will be among those hardest-hit by global warming, said Jose Manuel Moreno, a Spanish professor of ecology. Moreno also coordinated a group of scientists who wrote the chapter on Europe in the report issued Friday in Brussels by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Labels: Environment: climate change, EU, Mediterranean region