43 nations creating Mediterranean union

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

43 nations creating Mediterranean union

By ANGELA CHARLTON, Associated Press Writer

PARIS - More than 40 nations home to 800 million people were set Sunday to join in a Union for the Mediterranean, a vast though vague body its boosters hope can nudge this disparate and conflicted swath of the world toward peace and stability.

Israeli, Syrian and Palestinian leaders were among those attending an unprecedented gathering on the River Seine in Paris. Coping with age-old enmities involving their peoples and others along the Mediterranean shores will be a central challenge to the new union.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged nations around the Mediterranean to "learn to love one another rather than to continue to hate each other and wage war."

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said: "We are closer than ever to a possible (peace) agreement today" with the Palestinians — and said he hoped for direct contacts "soon" with enemy Syria.

France's foreign minister urged the countries to unite to deal with global warming, growing migration and shrinking water and energy resources.
"To do nothing would be a risk. We are fragile. Our world is fragile. Latent tensions and growing disparities are too dangerous for this unstable epoch. We have everything to gain by reinforcing our ties," Bernard Kouchner said to fellow foreign ministers from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

The ministers were meeting in the grandiose Grand Palais abutting the Seine River. Later Sunday, presidents or prime ministers of 43 countries meet at a summit hosted by Sarkozy and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The Union for the Mediterranean is Sarkozy's brainchild, originally devised as a pillar of his presidency and of France's leadership of the European Union. France holds the rotating EU post until the end of this year.

But Sarkozy's ambitious plan overlapped with European Union projects already in progress, and it was melded into EU efforts and expanded to include 27 members of the European Union, not just those on the Mediterranean coast.

Sunday's meeting was seen as more significant for the bodies gathered — the Israeli and Syrian leaders, for example, have never before sat at the same table — than for any immediate progress it is expected to achieve.
A draft declaration obtained by The Associated Press shows that summit participants will announce "objectives of achieving peace, stability and security" in the region. But the few firm measures are things such as a region-wide solar energy project, a cross-Mediterranean student exchange program and a plan to clean up the polluted sea.

On Saturday, Sarkozy played super-envoy, securing a preliminary agreement between the Syrian and Lebanese presidents that they would open embassies in each others' countries for the first time.

Tensions between Lebanon and Syria, which dominated its smaller neighbor for decades, are one of the thorns in Mediterranean unity.
Sarkozy made the unusual step of reaching out to Syria, a nation often accused of sponsoring terrorism and undermining regional unity, in an effort to bring it back into the international fold ahead of Sunday's summit.

"How can we make peace if we don't speak with" everyone, Sarkozy asked alongside the Israeli and Palestinian leaders Sunday morning.
Sarkozy asked Syrian President Bashar Assad for help in easing the international standoff with Iran over its nuclear program. Assad asked France to contribute efforts toward a peace deal between Syria and Israel.

Assad appeared to throw cold water on speculation of a possible one-on-one meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at this weekend's summit. Assad said indirect Israeli-Syrian talks mediated by Turkey could turn into full-fledged direct negotiations — but suggested little progress was likely before the United States elects a new president.


On Sunday morning, Sarkozy met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had shown reticence about coming to the summit. The leadership of the mostly Muslim country fears that the Mediterranean grouping is designed to keep Turkey out of the full EU membership that it seeks.

The Mediterranean gathering will be capped Monday with more than dozen leaders attending France's national Bastille Day military parade as special guests.

The new union is to include at least 43 nations, all of which are sending a president or prime minister to the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi objected to the whole idea and refused to come.
Associated Press writer Elaine Ganley contributed to this report.

[source]

[Errigal]

MEMBERS
Membership of the project is open to all states that border the Mediterranean, all members of the European Union, and some others. They represent a total of nearly one billion people.
The French Foreign Ministry said leaders of the following countries were attending: Albania, Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritania, Monaco, Montenegro, Morocco, the Netherlands, the Palestinian Authority, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey.
The only leaders not attending were Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, a vocal critic of the project, and Jordan's King Abdullah, who said he could not come for personal reasons.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa were also attending.

source

[Monolith]

Is this new 'union' just another name for the future expansion of EU?

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Monolith

Is this new 'union' just another name for the future expansion of EU?

Obviously. Otherwise how to understand inclusion of countries like Czech Republic or Finland in all this? Since when are they Mediterranean countries?

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Marulus

Obviously. Otherwise how to understand inclusion of countries like Czech Republic or Finland in all this? Since when are they Mediterranean countries?

Indeed. What would be the benefits for European countries? Open borders? Immigration waves, as an answer to weak demography? Cultural exchange? It seems almost surreal.

[Errigal]

All of this insanity is happening, obviously, without our consent and without our being able to stop it. The only consolation I get is that the Atlanticist/Globalist/Multiculturalists are becoming such a dangerous self-parody that even the dumbest member of the general public will be able to see it; that the current political class is lethal to Europe.

[Strengthandhonour]

haha what the hell is Belgium going to do in the med. union?

[Lutiferre]

Why dont they just call it the World Union, or the Eurafrican union. What is the point in making a union over a sea, and inclusive of all countries that border countries that border countries that border this sea?

[The Venetian]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

Why dont they just call it the World Union, or the Eurafrican union. What is the point in making a union over a sea, and inclusive of all countries that border countries that border countries that border this sea?

I agree.

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

Why dont they just call it the World Union, or the Eurafrican union. What is the point in making a union over a sea, and inclusive of all countries that border countries that border countries that border this sea?

But what about the other Asian countries, and the Americas? They should join too, so that we all can live in everlasting peace and harmony, with these nice bureaucrats who will take care after us.

[Freebooter]

Originally Posted by Lutiferre

Why dont they just call it the World Union, or the Eurafrican union. What is the point in making a union over a sea, and inclusive of all countries that border countries that border countries that border this sea?

Perhaps they think it's too great a step; making a global union would fit right into the mold of the infamous New World Order model and would likely make their agenda too obvious. Not that the current state of things is too far off or any less ridiculous, but I'm betting that this is their idea of "easing" into it. And, frankly, it's probably going to work.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Monolith

Is this new 'union' just another name for the future expansion of EU?

It is the same project if you think that the ideological foundations of the European Union are those of the Pan-Europe of the Austrian aristocrat Coundenhove-Kalergi, which he deviced as Eurafrica, while Russia would integrate in a union of Eurasia.

Edit: I've been trying for a while to get hold of this text:

title: European Transfigurations - Eurafrica and Eurasia: Coudenhove and Trubetzkoy Revisited
author: Botz-Bornstein, T.
journal title: EUROPEAN LEGACY
bibliographic details: 2007, VOL 12; NUMBER 5, pages 565-575

If anyone finds it, please let me know.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Menydh

It is the same project if you think that the ideological foundations of the European Union are those of the Pan-Europe of the Austrian aristocrat Coundenhove-Kalergi, which he deviced as Eurafrica, while Russia would integrate in a union of Eurasia.

From what I remember both George Orwell and Oswald Mosley proposed a European federation which included some sort of union with Africa.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by Errigal

From what I remember both George Orwell and Oswald Mosley proposed a European federation which included some sort of union with Africa.

Yes, Mosley did if I remember well.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Menydh

Yes, Mosley did if I remember well.

Here is Orwell's commentary in Toward European Unity from 1947:

The European peoples, and especially the British, have long owed their high standard of life to direct or indirect exploitation of the coloured peoples. This relationship has never been made clear by official Socialist propaganda, and the British worker, instead of being told that, by world standards, he is living above his income, has been taught to think of himself as an overworked, down-trodden slave. To the masses everywhere ‘Socialism’ means, or at least is associated with, higher wages, shorter hours, better houses, all-round social insurance, etc. etc. But it is by no means certain that we can afford these things if we throw away the advantages we derive from colonial exploitation. However evenly the national income is divided up, if the income as a whole falls, the working-class standard of living must fall with it. At best there is liable to be a long and uncomfortable reconstruction period for which public opinion has nowhere been prepared. But at the same time the European nations must stop being exploiters abroad if they are to build true Socialism at home. The first step toward a European Socialist federation is for the British to get out of India. But this entails something else. If the United States of Europe is to be self-sufficient and able to hold its own against Russian and America, it must include Africa and the Middle East. But that means that the position of the indigenous peoples in those countries must be changed out of recognition — that Morocco or Nigeria or Abyssiania must cease to be colonies or semi-colonies and become autonomous republics on a complete equality with the European peoples. This entails a vast change of outlook and a bitter, complex struggle which is not likely to be settled without bloodshed. When the pinch comes the forces of imperialism will turn out to be extremely strong, and the British worker, if he has been taught to think of Socialism in materialistic terms, may ultimately decide that it is better to remain an imperial power at the expense of playing second fiddle to America. In varying degrees all the European peoples, at any rate those who are to form part of the proposed union, will be faced with the same choice.

George Orwell: Toward European Unity