Paris - A summit in Paris between European Union countries
and their southern neighbours ran into overtime Sunday as leaders
argued over the exact wording of a joint declaration accompanying the
launch of a Union for the Mediterranean.
Despite appeals for peace from the meeting's host, French
President Nicolas Sarkozy, diplomats said the main sticking point
concerned the declaration's reference to the Middle East peace
process.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Syrian President Bashar al-
Assad and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas,
were among the 43 leaders attending the summit, which was held in the
glass-roofed halls of Paris' Grand Palais, by the Champs Elysees.
Sarkozy had earlier opened the founding summit meeting of the
Union for the Mediterranean with an appeal for peace in the Middle
East.
'The nations along the Mediterranean, and those who are not, share
a common interest: that peace and stability reign on the
Mediterranean,' Sarkozy told heads of state and government from the
European Union and from countries along the Mediterranean Basin.
'The success and failure of everything we undertake with each
other will depend first and foremost on the ability of each and every
one of us to truly share,' Sarkozy said. 'This means building
increasingly close solidarity, with respect for one another.'
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who will co-chair the union with
Sarkozy during its initial phase, said the EU should help promote
growth in the Mediterranean or face a massive influx of immigrants in
the future.
'What will be the situation in the Mediterranean, in particular on
the southern shores, in 2030 or 2050? And what consequences will that
have on our partners on the northern shores?' he said, noting that
the area's population was projected to grow from the current 272
million to 332 million in 2020.
The draft joint declaration being discussed in Paris contained
sensitive passages on the need to prevent religion from being
associated with terrorism, and calls for a nuclear-free Middle East.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country which is widely believed
to have a nuclear arsenal.
Tough negotiations also took place on the exact scope and power
structure of the union, which Sarkozy devised as a means of revamping
the EU's 13-year-old southern neighbourhood policy, which is known as
the Barcelona Process.
The EU's executive, the European Commission, says it has already
spent some 8 billion euros (12.7 billion dollars) on Barcelona
between 1995 and 2007, and plans to invest a further 9 billion euros
over the next six years.
But officials in Brussels concede that it has failed to deliver.
The new union hopes to attract private investors by focusing on
concrete projects.
Among them are plans for 'motorways of the sea', a belt of solar
power plants, a programme to help cope with natural disasters, and
the creation of an agency to promote medium-sized businesses.
It also gives the south a stronger voice through a
co-chairmanship. Its first presidents are France, as the current
holder of the EU's rotating presidency, and Egypt.
Ahead of the launch in Paris, Sarkozy held joint talks with Olmert
and Abbas, who spoke of their hopes of moving closer to peace.
'We have never been so close to an agreement than today,' Olmert
said of the Middle East peace process.
Sarkozy said the fact that old foes were sitting together around
the same table was an 'historic' event.
'We are learning to like, rather than hate, each other,' the
president had said ahead of the launch.
USA
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