Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-181"
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"Mr President, any discussion of European-Mediterranean relations is first and foremost a discussion of a shared political challenge. Today, the Mediterranean region and Europe form a strategic and economic area under construction. At a time when we are rediscovering our shared cultural and political heritage, we are cementing our future economic collaboration, because we want once again to play a key role in creating an area of stability, peace and prosperity.
If we are to assist our neighbours in implementing challenging reform programmes, we must have something appealing to offer to them. We have already offered to strengthen our trade relations. We could also work to relax formalities related to the granting of visas. The proposals contained in the Commission’s communication require significant political will, as well as economic and financial commitments on an equivalent scale.
The European Parliament’s contribution will be vital to ensure that Europe maintains a coherent policy towards the region and to generate political and financial support for the successful implementation of cooperation policies in the Mediterranean region.
In the context of the Barcelona Process, the German and Portuguese Presidencies, as has already been said, will be working closely with the Commission in order to take forward the course of action adopted at the Barcelona Summit in November 2005.
Activities planned for 2007 include: a conference on social affairs in March in Berlin, the aim of which will be to add a social dimension to our partnership; a conference on migration, organised by the Portuguese Presidency during the second half of the year – the first conference of its kind in the region which will provide a forum to discuss joint approaches to combating illegal immigration and managing legal immigration more effectively; a conference on research and university education, at which the Commission will announce the creation of scholarships for university students in the region; and finally, a Euro-Med trade ministerial meeting, which the Portuguese Presidency is organising in Lisbon, to take stock of our progress towards our goal of a Euro-Med free trade area.
The year 2007 will also be important because it will be the year that we define and implement far-reaching action plans to help create a brighter future for the region: the Horizon 2020 plan, whose aim is to depollute the Mediterranean Sea; the Istanbul action plan on the role of women in society, adopted in November 2006; the practical implementation of the Tampere programme, adopted during the conference of Euro-Mediterranean Ministers of Foreign Affairs; and the action plan for implementing the free-trade area that is the subject of Mr Arif’s report, to which I would like to turn now.
I should like to congratulate the rapporteur and the Members who have contributed to making this motion for a resolution relevant and complete. The resolution refers to the mixed results of the Barcelona Process as regards trade liberalisation and economic integration, while highlighting the complexity of the task and the socioeconomic constraints, both structural and linked to the current international context, which characterised this neighbouring region of the EU.
Indeed, the mixed results in terms of prosperity derived from the establishment of an FTA are not always attributable to the process itself or to its weaknesses, but are often due to a number of structural constraints inherent in this region, which have somehow prevented the process of economic integration realising its full potential.
However, despite these constraints, there has been an increase of trade following the liberalisation under the Barcelona Process: exports from Mediterranean partners to the EU have doubled since 1995; EU exports have increased by 60% and the bilateral trade deficit of the Mediterranean countries has decreased from 20% to 10% in the same period. The creation of a Euro-Med FTA remains an objective both of Barcelona and of our neighbourhood policy.
In both contexts, various initiatives have been developed to deepen and support liberalisation in the fields of both further tariff liberalisation and the elimination of non-tariff measures.
New negotiations in the areas of agriculture, services and investments have been launched since the Marrakesh trade ministerial last year, and our European Neighbourhood Policy Action Plans set up priority actions, particularly as regards the elimination of regulatory and non-tariff barriers.
The vast Euro-Mediterranean area is the home to two interdependent entities: the 27-member European Union, and the Mediterranean region with its more than 250 million inhabitants. We are interdependent politically as partners trying to bring peace to the Middle East and elsewhere in the Mediterranean, and working to promote pluralism and democracy.
From the beginning, the Barcelona Process has foreseen accompanying and mitigating measures to the Euro-Med FTA. These include: asymmetry in tariff dismantling; a gradual approach concerning liberalisation – for example, the agriculture sector is starting only now once a reasonable period followed industrial liberalisation; and last but not least, the provision of significant aid in support of economic and structural reforms and of sustainable rural development, earlier through MEDA, currently through the new ENP instrument.
Our priority remains to enhance sustainable development and competitiveness in the Mediterranean region through the elimination of obstacles to trade and by promoting regional integration, investments, regulatory convergence towards the EU internal market rules, research and innovation and the reinforcement of infrastructure and networks in the region. In a nutshell, this means working towards the shared prosperity which is the objective of the Barcelona Process and our neighbourhood policy. We will make every effort to ensure that this vision becomes a reality.
Honourable Members, at the heart of our relations with our Mediterranean partner countries is our very deep and strong desire to promote security, growth and stability in the region. However, there is also the abiding conviction that we are taking part in an even more ambitious project: constructing a region and affirming our common goals and values. The European Commission is counting on the European Parliament to rise to these great challenges with the help of the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly and I look forward to our continued working together.
We are interdependent economically: Euro-Med trade relations are healthy and growing. Today, Mediterranean countries’ exports to the EU 27 have grown by 10% per year on average between 2000 and 2006. Imports from the EU 27 have also increased, but at a slower pace of 4%. The EU trade surplus has been reduced substantially and in 2006 trade was basically balanced.
However, we are interdependent in other ways: environmentally, sharing more than 46 000 kilometres of Mediterranean coastline, and jointly confronting challenges linked to climate change, water and the depollution of the sea. We are interdependent with respect to energy, too, thanks to the flows of oil and gas resources that originate in, and transit, the Mediterranean. We are also interdependent demographically, given the need for dialogue with the countries of North Africa on how to handle legal and illegal migration. Finally, we are interdependent culturally because of the urgently required in-depth dialogue between cultures and religions.
In response to this interdependence, the EU has set up the Neighbourhood Policy and the Barcelona Process: complementary and coherent frameworks for policy and cooperation. Within these frameworks, we have association agreements and neighbourhood action plans which have been concluded with almost all countries in the region. The most recent agreement with Egypt was adopted at the EU-Egypt Association Council on 6 March.
The Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Area, as has been mentioned, is gradually taking shape and will act as an interface between an increasingly globalised world and Europe’s open, inclusive regionalism. We are building on our liberalised trade in goods to liberalise trade in services and business establishment in a way that encourages much-needed regional economic integration.
Active Euro-Mediterranean institutions have been set up such as the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly. The year 2007 will certainly be an important one in our relations with a region that is undergoing major change, which has great expectations of Europe and for which a close relationship with the Union is a major priority.
The year 2007 will be the first year of operation of the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument. Our work with our partners is animated by the conviction that, if changes are to last, they must come from within society.
In the context of the neighbourhood policy, the gradual implementation of political and economic reforms is opening the road to a rapprochement between Europe and the Mediterranean countries."@en1
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