Barcelona Conference

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The Barcelona Conference or Common Strategy on the Mediterranean Region occurred on November 27-November 28, 1995. It was attended by the then 15 European Union (EU) members and 12 countries of the Mediterranean Basin. The United States requested participant status and was granted observer status.

1 Role
2 Afterwards
3 Current situation
4 Conference members
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Role

Its agenda was the following:

Security and stability in the Mediterranean;
Agreeing on shared values and initializing a long-term process for cooperation in the Mediterranean;
Promoting democracy, good governance and human rights;
Achieving mutually satisfactory trading terms for the region's partners, the "region" consisting of the countries that participated;
Establishing a complementary policy to the United States' presence in the Mediterranean.

The Barcelona Process comprises three "baskets":

economic - to work for shared prosperity in the Mediterranean, including the Association Agreements on the bilateral level
political - promotion of political values, good governance and democracy
cultural - cultural exchange and strengthening civil society

Javier Solana opened the conference saying that they were brought together to straighten out the "clash of civilizations" and misunderstandings that there had been between them, and that it "was auspicious" that they had convened on the 900th anniversary of the First Crusade. He described the conference as a process to foster cultural and economic unity in the Mediterranean region. The Barcelona Treaty was drawn up by the 27 countries in attendance, and Javier Solana, who represented Spain as their foreign minister during their turn at the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, was credited with the diplomatic accomplishment.

[edit] Afterwards

Both Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had high praises for Solana's coordination of the Barcelona Process. Ehud Barak said they had all beaten their swords into ploughshares and that at last Israel had joined the "European Club".^{[citation needed]} Libya was not present at the Conference as Colonel Gaddafi claimed it was a blatant European attempt to gain hegemony outside its borders.^{[citation needed]} However, in 2000, both Gaddafi and his country acknowledged and signed up for the principles laid out in the Barcelona Process. The Barcelona Process, developed after the Conference in successive annual meetings, is a set of goals designed to lead to a free trade area in the Middle East by 2010. Solana has said that by the tenth anniversary of the conference true Middle East peace might be achieved.^{[citation needed]} The Euro-Mediterranean free trade area (EU-MEFTA) is based on the Barcelona Process and ENP. The Agadir Agreement of 2004 is seen as its first building block.

[edit] Current situation

By some analysts, the process has been declared ineffective. The blockade of the Middle East Peace Process is having an impact on the Barcelona Process and is hindering progress especially in the second basket. The economic basket can be considered a succeess, and there have been more projects for the exchange on a cultural level and between the peoples in the riparian states. Other criticism is mainly based on the predominant role the European Union is playing. Normally it is the EU that is assessing the state of affairs which leads to the impression that the North is dictating the South what to do. The question of an enhanced co-ownership of the process has repeatedly been brought up over the last years.

Being a long-term process and much more complex than any other similar project, it may be many years before a final judgement can be made.