Mediterranean Union proposal

EU LEADERS reacted coolly yesterday to French plans for a grand Mediterranean Union stretching from Morocco to Turkey and warned that the project must involve all EU members.

The leaders, holding two days of talks in Brussels, voiced support for boosting ties with the region, but rejected the idea of creating any new structure on which to base their partnership.

“The EU should increase its presence in the Mediterranean,” said Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency.

“But we don’t need parallel institutions, and of course we have to have all member countries and countries of the Mediterranean on board,” he told reporters as he arrived at the European Council building to host the summit.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy raised the plan during last year’s election campaign.

But Germany feared he would use it to counter Berlin’s growing influence in central Europe as the EU expands, by limiting the club to southern European countries.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said: “It is important that all member states of the EU are engaged in it.”

Once seen as a fully-fledged club for Turkey, whose EU membership is opposed by France, Sarkoz’s watered-down union appears to be a forum for cooperation with countries around the Mediterranean rim.

A document circulated among France’s EU partners in Brussels said that it would have “the role of promoting cooperation in a regional dimension, to develop solidarity” between those taking part.

One thing is clear, few really understand what it is all about.

Despite Sarkozy’s willingness to compromise, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has not decided whether to attend a July 13 summit in Paris on the project, just after France takes over the EU’s rotating presidency.

The two-day summit in Brussels will also focus on environment policy amid fears that Europe’s tactics to cut greenhouse gas emissions might just export jobs and pollution abroad.