Mediterranean: an unavoidable shared future for Europeans and Arabs

While Europe was in turnmoil over the future of the Euro and Spanish banks, I spent the week in Tunis to attend the 3rd Congress on the South North Mediterranean Dialogue. Although it was the first time I attended a event with such a scope, it gave me the confirmation that my intuitions about the region are right.

The Mediterranean is the new European frontier, not some foreign land. The destiny of the region is interlinked with that of Europe. Actually Europeans and Arabs share more than what we think: economic crisis, sky-rocketing unemployment and migration.

Bad news for those who indulge in the illusion that our future is limited to European Christianity. Arabs and Islam have been part of European history for the last six centuries and they will play a central role in the future.

Europe plays a pivotal role of people in the Mediterranean: peace between nations, prosperity for its own people but also imperialism and support for dictatorial regimes. Its openness and opportunities attract the youth but patronising attitude and growing racism enrage the adults. Europe is an ageing society, while Arab countries have a burgeoning youth. Migration from the southern countries can’t be stopped as you can’t stop people hoping for a better life, and the European economy needs a fresh supply of labour to keep the pace and pay for pensions.

Then how can this unavoidable shared future be turned into an opportunity for all parties? This is also what I was able to explore in the last days.

I don’t pretend to have the solution but am proposing part of it, exploring a new path. Europe should start to seriously consider investing in civil society, and recognise the sector’s role in good governance and economic development in the region.

The new policy of the EU – Partnership for Democracy and Shared Prosperity with the Southern Mediterranean – launched by the High Representative Baroness Ashton in 2011, recognised just half of this proposal. Civil society is understood as an agent of democracy, but its role in the economy especially to meet people’s needs and create jobs is not yet acknowledged. Moreover, the finacial support of the EU through a Civil Society Facility is too little – just 35m – and slow. Funding hasn’t flown in yet because of the usual bureaucratic lethargy.

However the Commission has shown eagerness and speed implementing the Social Innovation agenda and Social Business Initiative in the last two years. These policies fully recognise the economic role of civil society as I suggest, and are pretty well funded. Unfortunately their outreach is limited to the EU.

It’s time for the EU to move forward and extend these socio-economic policies to all the European programmes in the world: especially Future Accession Countries (Western Balkans and Turkey), New Neighbours and international aid. The US State Department  has already done it with the launch of the ‘impact economy’ a few weeks ago.

I would even encourage the EU to take a step further, developing a 50/50 strategy with the Arab countries, especially those in the Gulf. We need to give up the patronising attitude derived from the imperialist legacy, and move to a real cooperation asking partners to take a fair share of responsibility and engage people from all shores. Europe and Arab countries could together foster socio-economic policies, sharing the burden and reaping the rewards together in the future years.

Imagine how such an approach would change people attitudes towards the different costs of the Mediterrnean. We could make the sea ours again.