Three decades later, those who participated in that meeting of foreign ministers in the Catalan capital still remember the excitement it caused. On November 28, 1995, in post-Olympic Barcelona, which claimed its Mediterranean identity, Europe and its southern neighbors signed a declaration that aspired – nothing less – to bring about a shift in regional geopolitics. It gave birth to the Barcelona Process, an agreement that inaugurated, in the words of its architects, “a new way of addressing the problems” of our sea, bringing together security, economics and culture as essential pillars for building a shared space of peace and prosperity.
This text was made possible by a rare historical moment: the echoes of the Oslo peace process, the feeling – difficult to recapture today – that the Middle East faces a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the conviction that the Mediterranean is capable of shedding its image as a fractured border. Three decades later, the balance of the project fluctuates between lights and shadows. “The existence of the Barcelona Process has structured the Mediterranean region, I would even say, geopolitically, despite its relative ineffectiveness in concrete economic and social development projects,” says diplomat Senin Florence, CEO of the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed).
Following the agreement between EU members and 12 partner countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Cyprus and Malta) there has been tangible progress – trade exchanges, joint cultural programmes, and an emerging common political agenda – but there are also major setbacks: the deadlock of the peace process, the failure of the democratization process in much of the south, the outbreak of new conflicts and a climate of mistrust that has not even been achieved. The Union for the Mediterranean, established in 2008 and headquartered in Barcelona, has succeeded in dispelling this phenomenon.
Joan Borrell, Deputy Secretary-General of the Union for the Mediterranean, defines this balance between light and light revealingly: “The bottle is very much half empty, but if we throw it away, we will be left without water.” “You cannot abandon the idea of cooperation between countries,” he insists, an idea Florence shares: “We have not achieved the goals of a wonderful world that we set for ourselves in ’95 when we thought that in 2012 we would have a large Euro-Mediterranean free trade area, but we must continue to row. If today we had to formulate a security for the region, we would reformulate the same thing as in ’95. The principles are still valid for creating an area of cooperation.” Peace, stability, common economic progress, dialogue and understanding.”
This signing not only served as a diplomatic milestone, but also placed Barcelona and Catalonia on the map of international dialogue. “Barcelona has become a symbolic city for Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, so much so that its synonym has become called the Barcelona Process,” says Florence. Catalonia wants to take advantage of that position to lead a common front of regions that can leave their mark on the implementation of the New Mediterranean Charter, a European Commission initiative that seeks to strengthen relations and restore lost influence in a region of enormous geopolitical importance to Europe.
In the midst of the anniversary, Barcelona is hosting dozens of high-level summits, conferences and meetings these days, which culminate today, Friday, in the tenth Forum of the Union for the Mediterranean, headed by Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albarez. High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jordan, Ayman Safadi. Dubravka Sojka, the new portfolio holder of the Community’s second Executive Director Ursula von der Leyen, will also participate, demonstrating the growing importance that Brussels attaches to the region: European Commissioner for the Mediterranean.
The Mediterranean Charter, which aims to complement the Union for the Mediterranean, places special emphasis on youth in the region and their training. “The EU has realized that the Mediterranean is its logical neighborhood space and that other actors want to occupy that space,” Borrell says, referring to powers like China or Russia.
Before the meeting of officials for European and Mediterranean foreign affairs in Barcelona, the Catalan government wanted to define its priorities at the Euro-Mediterranean Summit of the Regions, where a joint declaration was adopted urging the Commission to encourage regional powers in developing the agreement. State President Salvador Illa said: “The regions must intensify our role in European and Mediterranean governance, in defining and implementing policies.”
These days, Barcelona is also hosting representatives of more than 40 cities from both shores of the Mediterranean at the Mediterranean Cities Conference +30, organized by the Mediterranean Cities Network and the European Mediterranean Institute, which has been included for the first time in the program of the Union for the Mediterranean Forum. Colboni said yesterday: “There is a qualitative shift that recognizes cities as full actors in Mediterranean cooperation.”
“The Barcelona Process changed the perspective; it meant a change in vision and attitude,” highlights Stefano Sannino, Director-General for the Middle East, North Africa and Gulf at the European Commission. “Not achieving the results we expected does not mean that the idea is not good. It is a very fragmented region, with many problems and confrontations and it has not been easy to find a common path, but the future must be one of integration,” he stressed to El Pais newspaper last week in a separate segment of the Euro-Mediterranean Economic and Trade Forum, organized by the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and the Euro-Mediterranean Institute for the Mediterranean.
This anniversary calls not only for memory, but also for action: strengthening the role of cities and regions, consolidating trade and cultural relations, and renewing the political will to build a safer, more prosperous, and more integrated Mediterranean region. An effort that, although led by Spain, benefits the whole of Europe. “We want a real agreement with the southern Mediterranean,” Commissioner Soica said in a recent interview with El Pais newspaper. “We are in a new geopolitical context and we must focus more attention on this region.”