University of Greenwich

School of Social Science

The European Union’s External Relations

Essay:

Argument:
“The EU and its member states have proved incapable of developing a
coherent Mediterranean Policy” Do you agree?

Abdisalam M Issa-Salwe

25 May 1995
 Content
Pages
Intro duction 1
Introduction

Strategically, the Mediterranean area is very impo rtant fo r the European Unio n as its
social and political stability will be beneficial for it. Any crisis affecting this area can
directly jeo pardise the stability o f Europe. Therefore, it’s for the interest of the EU to
maintain so cial and political stability in this area. Did the EU develop a coherent po licy to
achieve this aim?

This essay will attempt to examine the po litical, economical and historical background
which shaped the relations o f the EU and its Mediterranean neighbours, and how this
relationship challenged the Co mmunity.

1 Historical B ackground

Euro pe had always stro ng histo rical trade and culture with the Mediterranean countries.
Political relationship between individual EU members and countries in this region created
by a co lonial o r quasi-co lonial pro cess, was still in place.1 Some of these relations were
France’s link with Maghreb countries, which comprise Marocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
Germany was developing solid connection with Turkey. Italy maintained strong links
with its fo rmer co lony of Libya, in additio n to having traditional ties with Malta and
Tunisia.

In the years between 1950s 1960 fo r the Euro pean Community extending associate to the
Mediterranean regio n appeared to be a natural pro cess. The co untries of the
Mediterranean countries depended heavily on trade with the EC. On the o ther hand, this
area was also an important EC export outlet In 1960s, nearly 8 percent of EC expo rts
went to the Maghreb and Mashreq, some 2.5 percent went to Greece and Turkey, and 4
percent to Spain and Portugal (before these last two countries joined the EC).2
In addition to that, much o f the petroleum co nsumed in Euro pe came either fro m North
Comment [RC1]:
Africa o r the Middle East.3
2 Stages of the Mediterranean Policy

In spite of all the attempts by the EC to create a coherent policy towards this region, they
failed to reach o ne. They attempted to do several appro aches to wards the Mediterranean,
and still trying to find a balance between “o utright integration and ‘special’ ties with the
no n-European countries of the regio n.”4

The external trade po licies actually fo llo wed were quite different across the countries o f
this region. When the dynamics of the vario us co untry situations were taken into account,
even following a “co mmo n” approach vis-à-vis country groups seemed difficult for the
Community during the 1970s. And difficult it turned out to be.

2.1 A Case-by-Case Approach

The first attempted approach was characterised by, what Grilli defines, a “case-by-case
approach” to wards the countries of the regio n. As a result o f these local trade problems
was created (table 1).

Table 1: Agreement between the EC and Mediterranean Countries

 Source: Grilli, p.182.

This appro ach ranged from unlimited associatio n under Art.238 o f the Treaty o f Ro me
with Greece (1961) and Turkey (1963); to moderate asso ciation with Tunisia (1969),
Marocco (1969), Malta (1970) and Cyprus (1972); to non-preferential trade agreements
with co untries, such as Israel (1964), Lebanon (1965) and Yugo slavia (1970); to a relation
of unilateral trade co ncessio ns such as those with Spain (1970) and Egypt (1972).5 The
special association agreements reached early o n with Greece and Turkey, were more
generous in co ntent and forward lo oking in perspective, and reflected the EC’s
relationship with these co untries as Western alliance as well as future members o f the EC.

2.2 A Global Approach

A new appro ach of EC external relation policy process towards the Mediterranean area
began in the early 1970s. This was fo rmally set in motio n when the Heads of States and
Go vernment of the member states formally signed the change in strategy at the end of their
Octo ber 1970 summit in Paris.6 In December 1973 in Copenhagen the Foreign Ministers
of the Co mmunity co nfirmed the same decision reached in Paris which was to commit the
Community to fulfil of its obligations to wards the Mediterranean basin with which “should
be subject to a global and balanced approach”.7 In spite of the term global, this was meant
mo re o n geographical sense than covering the who le globe.

This new approach was a supposed to be a more systematic and appropriate fashion
differed from the previous trend which the EC followed in the sense that this aimed at
establishing a new coherence in the relatio ns between the Community and all the
Mediterranean countries. The sco pe of this approach had to have more than trade as it
included extending to the social and financial as well. The importance of the
Mediterranean area to the Community was identifies by the Co mmission as “a natural
extensio n o f European integratio n.”8

3 Facts and Terms

To make ground for the glo bal approach, the Community was to phase o ut its import
duties o n industrial pro duct by 1977 and liberalise its import regime on agricultural
products as well. The o bjective was to extend co ncessions co vering at least 80 percent o f
the agricultural product exported by each Mediterranean country to the Community, and
therefo re to establish the basis for the creatio n of a free-trade area with these countries
(table 2).9 Financial and technical co-operation between the Community and
Mediterranean countries was in the horizon, and this could mean also the extensio n o f EC
aid to them.

Table 2: Structure of Productio n o f Exports of Mediterranean Countries

Source: Grilli, p.192.

Ho wever, soo n there was co ntradicting outco me from this po licy as the co-operation
agreements reached with the Maghreb - Marocco , Algeria and Tunisia - in 1976, and the
Mashreb - Egypt, Israel, Lebano n and Syria - in 1977, were to falter and failed to create
the free-trade area. Two main reaso ns were believed to be the cause of this failure. The
first was when the Israeli-Arab war in October 1973, known also as the Yo m Kippur War,
the Arab countries acquired “commodity power” when the Organisation of the Arab
Petroleum Countries (OAPEC) decreased the sell of the o il to EC countries. The
Community felt threatened by this move, as it depended its industrial energy from the
Middle East. The high price of the o il created economic recessio n and subsequently to a
difficult and uncertain phase of internal structural adjustment to the new situation.

The seco nd reason came as a result of the Community enlargement in the early 1970s.
The arrival of Britain in the EC necessitated a widening of the Asso ciatio n agreements,
and a redefinitio n o f the terms and extensio n of the Yaoundé framework to the fo rmer
British co lonies o f Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific. This was followed by Greece
joined the EC in January 1981, and Spain and Po rtugal in 1993.

A clear set up of EC po licy was again reshaping, which as a result of these new glo bal
situation, each EC member was to respo nd acco rding to its interests. With membership in
view, EC co ntinued its policies o f asso ciation with as Greece and Turkey,10 and extended
this approach to Malta and Cyprus.11 For co untries in Maghreb and Mashreq EC was to
upgrade their co-operatio n agreements which invo lved technical and financial aid.

Following the po litical and economic strategy which was taking in the Maghreb and
Mashreq regions, EC was to redefine its relatio n with this part o f the wo rld. The EC
co untries were interested in extending trade concession to manufactures, while the
southern countries tended to be more attentive to their agricultural interests when dealing
with the Co mmunity.12 The agreements included a part dealing with trade preferences
granted by the EC to the agricultural and industrial exports of the various Southern
Mediterranean co untries and part dealing with economic, technical and financial co-
operation between the partner and the Community.

3.1 The EC Enlargement and its Effect

on the Mediterranean Countries

When the Southern enlargement began to appear on the agenda in the mid-1970s, this did
no t seem to pose any problem to the Co mmunity. EC was recovering from the impact o f
the 1973 o il crisis, and the creatio n o f a larger market was seen as a beneficial go al.13

The Mediterranean countries are quite different from one another, in size, economic
structure and resources endowments. They have also followed different growth
development strategies over the past four decades. Geographical distribution o f expo rts
from Mediterranean countries indicates that the importance o f the EC as an end market
has increased for many So uthern Mediterranean countries (table 3).14 Any change o f EC
bo rders, especially to wards the southern basin could make tremendo us effect.

Between 1967 to 1977 Maghreb countries exported to the EC 44.2 percent and the next
decade an increased of 13.8 percent was reported. Despite that these co untries diversified
the geo graphical destination of their exports, the EC market remains critical fo r many
Southern Mediterranean co untries. As consequence o f EC enlargement, was to bring
restrictio n fo r their expo rts.

Table 3: Geographical Distribution of Southern Mediterranean countries’ Export (% share)

 Source: Grilli, 1994, p.206

On 1 January 1973 Britain became full member of the Community and its entry
necessitated the EC to widen the association agreements, and extend the Yaoundé
framework to the fo rmer British colonies.15 However, it was the second enlargement
which had more impact with the Mediterranean countries’ relationship. This last
enlargement to ok into two phases: Greece became a member of the Community on 1
January 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986.

Before the seco nd enlargement was to take place the Co mmission put the issue in fo cus in
1982 when it reported that tro uble was in the horizon over the agreements with the
Mediterranean co untries. Despite the free access to the Co mmunity markets fo r all
manufactures guarantee by the co-operation agreements, this invo lved with quantitative
restrictio n o n the imports of textiles and clothing from countries such as Marocco, Tunisia
and Egypt. These limitatio ns destabilised the growth of a sector in which many o f the
Maghreb and Mashreq countries had advantage over EC countries.

Mo reo ver, while the eco no mic interests o f the So uthern Mediterranean co untries were
being threatened by the enlargement, another effect of this po licy was the Northern
Euro pean members feeling threatened by the pro spective loss of export markets in the
Mediterranean are and elsewhere.16

Once Greece, Spain and Po rtugal became full member of the EC, the competition that
Southern Mediterranean countries were expecting in Community markets from increased
export o f agricultural commodities such as citrus, o live oil, fresh vegetable and other kind
of fruits from this these new member of the Community. Beside the fear of trade
deflectio n towards the new EC member, Southern Mediterranean co untries were also
anxious about the effect o f the expansion in output of competing agricultural commodities
that would follow the extensio n o f Co mmo n Agricultural Po licy (CAP). The same impact
co uld hit the every o ther expo rt textile-clothing and the kinds. The competitive
agricultural expo rts of The Southern Mediterranean countries were being deflected fro m
the EC markets by those of Spain and Portugal.

In spite o f the preferential tariff enjoyed by the So uthern Mediterranean co untries, they
fo und difficult to hold the trend in shares of EC expo rts in various types o f products such
fo od, raw materials and manufactures (table 4).
Table 5: Shares o f Mediterranean Countries in EC(6) Imports o f Selected Products (%)

Source: Grilli, 1994, p.207.

In spite all these develo pments the Co mmunity strongly reiterated the special po litical
value it attributed to co -o peration with its Southern Mediterranean neighbo urs, by
emphasising that the Community’s appro ach in this area sho uld “go beyond develo pment
aid and commercial policy to tray to create the conditions fo r a peace witho ut which there
can be no pro sperity o r security for anyo ne.”17

To address the new development EC opted to increase its aid so as to contribute to the
social and eco no mic develo pment of the So uthern Mediterranean countries and develop
further the strategy o f co mplementary by extending co-operatio n to other functio ns such
as scientific and technology co -o peration.

Conclusion

The Mediterranean po licy o f the EC began shaping in the mid-1970s as it was part of an
evolving response to a long standing challenge that the Community was trying to face a
little mo re co herently than in the past, witho ut being quite able to systematise it.

The Mediterranean area has recently become the object of co nsiderable attention inside the
Community. After dealing with some of the consequences of the second enlargement
through the nego tiation o f additio nal protoco ls to the existing co -o peration agreements
with Mediterranean countries in 1986-87, the Community fo cused again o n its longer-term
objectives in this area and o n the related policy requirements. Between 1989 to 1990 the
Economic and So cial Co mmittee o f the Communities (ESC) re-examined the
Mediterranean policy of the EC. The main concern was the deteriorating in the socio-
eco no mic circumstances o f most Mediterranean countries and with the interest of the
Community in alleviatio n it. The most critical aspect of the 1989 ESC repo rt was it
explicit redefinitio n of the Community’s policy goals in the Mediterranean area, changing
them The fear of deterioration o f conditions of this area was also to safeguard the EC
co untries from the surge of immigration fro m this area in case the situatio n got o ut o f
co ntrol.
The Commission raised in the recent past these concerns to the Co uncil. Increasing
demographical pressures, wo rsening social imbalances and co ntinues serio us po litical
instability in the who le Mediterranean area justifies renewed interest in the economic
development of the no n-member Mediterranean co untries (NMCs), at a time when the
ho pe o f the NMCs were quite o bvio usly influenced by the Community’s new
development.18

In spite that the EC emphasising o f the support of economic reform in Mediterranean

co untries, and many other means of co-operation such as encouragement of private
investments, increases in aid flow to private investment, improved access to Co mmunity
markets for their expo rts and strengthening eco no mic and political dialogue with the
southern neighbours, they failed to realise. Co -o peration remained, what Grilli defines, a
“piecemeal and come progressively less effective, while the propensity to adopt defensive
postures in all area, from trade to immigration” remain likely to gro w.19

EC did no agree o n many ....., (check Stephen bo ok for the failure)

Countries in the EC who were ka baqayay inay qatar dhaqaalahoo da galo sabab inay
Southern Mediterranean co untries waxa ay soo saaraan ciriiri ay geshaan

Reference

Jones, Alun; et al.; The European Community: A Guide Through the Maze, 5th eds.
(Londo n: Kogan Page Ltd., 1994).
Geo rge, Stephen; Politics and Policy in the European Community, (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985).

Grilli, R Enzo ; The European Community and Developing Countries, (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Williams, M. Allan; The European Community, 2nd eds. (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994).

11
Grilli, 1994, p.180.
2
Ibid., p.180.
3
Ibid., p.180.
4
Ibid., p.181.
5
Ibid., pp.181-2.
6
Ibid., p.185.
7
Ibid., p.185.
8
Ibid., p.186.
9
Ibid., p..186.
10
Stephen, 1985, pp.60-70.
11
Grilli, 1994, pp.175-90.
12
Ibid., p.191.
13
Williams, Allan, 1994, pp.74-5..
14
Grilli, 1994, pp. 204-5.
15
Ireland and Denmark in the same period.
16
Grilli, 1994, p.200.
17
Ibid. p.199.
18
Ibid., pp.212-3.
19
Ibid., pp.213-4