43-Nation Mediterranean Union Created

PARIS — French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged the disparate and conflicted countries around the Mediterranean Sea on Sunday to make peace as European rivals did in the 20th century, as he launched an unprecedented Union for the Mediterranean.

Yet the summit did not mask all the divisions that crisscross the region: Syria's President Bashar Assad left the enormous table before Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave his speech to the more than 40 leaders seated around it, Israeli government officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

It was the first time the two men had sat at the same table.

"The European and the Mediterranean dreams are inseparable," Sarkozy told leaders from more than 40 nations in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. "We will succeed together; we will fail together."

The union Sarkozy championed as a pillar of his presidency brought together around one table for the first time dignitaries such rival nations as Israel and Syria, Algeria and Morocco, Turkey and Greece.

Coping with age-old enmities involving their peoples and others along the Mediterranean shores will be a central challenge to the new union encompassing some 800 million people.

"We will build peace in the Mediterranean together, like yesterday we built peace in Europe," Sarkozy said. He insisted the new body would not be "north against south, not Europe against the rest ... but united."

Sarkozy went to special efforts to bring Syria into the international fold for the summit: Assad met Lebanese President Michel Suleiman and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, separately, both for the first time. And he met Sarkozy, after years of chill between their countries.

Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak, co-presiding the summit with Sarkozy, said: "We are linked by a common destiny."

He said the union has better chances of success than a previous cooperation process launched in Barcelona in 1995 because the new body focuses on practical projects parallel to efforts toward Mideast peace.

Mubarak called on the new union to tackle reducing the wealth "gap" between north and south, and cited other southern Mediterranean "challenges" as education, food safety, health and social welfare.

"The success of the Union will depend on ... reforms and durable development," Mubarak said.

A draft declaration obtained by The Associated Press shows that summit participants will announce "objectives of achieving peace, stability and security" in the region. The six firm measures it names include a region-wide solar energy project, a cross-Mediterranean student exchange program and a plan to clean up the polluted sea.

The draft declaration says the Union for the Mediterranean is to be operational by the end of this year, and unlike any previous body, it will be jointly run by all its members. It will have a dual presidency, held jointly for rotating terms by one country within the European Union and one country on the Mediterranean shore.

The draft also speaks of democratic principles, human rights and fundamental freedoms _ values Western critics have accused such union members as Syria of violating.

Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said he hoped the union would make it easier for North Africans to receive visas for Europe.

"Our common Sea should bring us closer together, not separate us," the president said in an interview with official Algerian news agency APS.

He also questioned whether the union would have enough money to get things done and whether "the EU really wants to contribute to bringing southern Mediterranean countries up to speed."

Germany's Merkel said, though, that the project would have about US$20.6 billion that has not yet been spent by the Barcelona Process _ the forerunner of the Mediterranean union.

Merkel, who pushed to expand Sarkozy's idea to include all 27 EU nations, called Sunday's meeting "a very good start" and said it could help the Middle East conflict.

The Union for the Mediterranean is Sarkozy's brainchild and was timed to coincide with the French presidency of the European Union. Paris holds the rotating post until the end of this year.

But Sarkozy's ambitious plan overlapped with EU projects already in progress, and it was melded into EU efforts and expanded to include 27 members of the European Union, not just those on the Mediterranean coast.

Sunday's meeting was seen as more significant for the bodies gathered than for any immediate progress it is expected to achieve.

Israel's Olmert said: "We are closer than ever to a possible (peace) agreement today" with the Palestinians _ and said he hoped for direct contacts "soon" with enemy Syria.

Earlier Sunday, France's foreign minister urged the countries to unite to deal with global warming, growing migration and shrinking water and energy resources.

"To do nothing would be a risk. We are fragile. Our world is fragile. Latent tensions and growing disparities are too dangerous for this unstable epoch. We have everything to gain by reinforcing our ties," Bernard Kouchner said.

On Sunday morning, Sarkozy met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had shown reticence about coming to the summit. The leadership of the mostly Muslim country fears that the Mediterranean grouping is designed to keep Turkey out of the full EU membership that it seeks.

The Mediterranean gathering will be capped Monday with more than dozen leaders attending France's national Bastille Day military parade as special guests.

The new union is to include at least 43 nations, nearly all of which sent a president or prime minister to the summit. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi objected to the whole idea and refused to come.

___

Associated Press writers Alfred de Montesquiou, Elaine Ganley and Amy Teibel contributed to this report.

Comments

[loki]

01:52 PM on 07/14/2008

More progress on the one world, one government . Once Neo Cons sneak the Canada Mexico America union through, and this one gets in, it will be pretty easy to get them all together with the EU. Then there is only Asia and South America to convince. I just wonder who believes they will sit at the helm once if it all happens? That will be a war all of its own.

[KillTheMessenger]

08:00 PM on 07/14/2008

The reality is very different. The closer Europe came together, the more autonomy it gave to its regions. This is by design and by economic reality. One has to have been there to understand what that means and how refreshing it is compared to the block thinking of half a century ago.

Freedom increases when people are prosperous­. That's a very powerful insight and the Europeans are making good use of it.

[NYCBear]

11:32 AM on 07/14/2008

What? Getting rivals and enemies to sit at the same table and talk about their common needs and goals? Instead of bombing each other?

This is a liberal plot to destabiliz­e American foreign policy and cut armaments companies profits! Quick - break out the fear-monge­rs, cynics and spin doctors, attack it!

[vmonter]

10:46 AM on 07/14/2008

I guess The State had too much revenue and not enough bills. This should help solve that problem.

[ratcityreprobate]

10:33 AM on 07/14/2008

Gee, I don't remember there being 43 nations around the Mediterran­ean Sea. I must have been sleeping that day in geography class.

[KillTheMessenger]

08:01 PM on 07/14/2008

See, globalizat­ion changes everything­.

[MilwaukeeDan]

09:22 AM on 07/14/2008

That's all we need in Europe, more beurocracy­(sp?). With Europe, there is the European Union, the United Nations, NATO and I believe Russia is trying to push through some union with its allies. With so many local and world unions, who will actualy work in these countries? It reminds me of Bosnia and its western installed government­s(yes,plur­al), you have to go through miles of red tape to get the simplest things done.

[ROBOT8]

03:26 AM on 07/14/2008

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS! AMERICA IS NO LONGER A THREAT TO ANYONE....­..........­...THE ONLY ILLUSION IS THAT AMERICA IS A WORLD POWER
"If something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in an American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaratio­n of Independen­ce." -Lawrence Wilkerson, a chief of staff for then Secretary of State Colin Powell, on the [b]ush administra­tion, which he said was run by a "cabal." 10/31/05 Newsweek

[francoise]

02:58 AM on 07/14/2008

Why all this pessimism in the comments ?

On the one hand there are countries like Morocco and Algeria, or Greece and Turkey, which, although neighbors and peopled by human beings of the same species, have been full of hatred toward one another.

On the other hand there are enormous challenges to face : climate change, a population with a majority of old people in the North and a majority of young people in the South, the growing GPD of China.

The GPD of EU is currently 22 % of the world GPD. In 2015, when China's GPD is higher than the USA's GPD, EU's one will be 12 %.

If EU and the Mediterran­ean countries get together, sharing their labor force, their technology­, and their ressources­, they might be able to succeed better in developpin­g alternate energies, education, peace, jobs, and a stronger economy.

Thanks to a more important GPD, their voice would be considered as more important internatio­nally.

I don't expect this first meeting to achieve a miracle, but I'm optimistic enough to consider it as a first positive step.

[KCFreedom]

02:12 AM on 07/14/2008

Grabbed quickly from Wikipedia, from James Warburg, son of banker Paul Warburg, one of the founders of the Fed Reserve Bank:

"We shall have World Government­, whether or not we like it. The question is only whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest." (Feb. 17, 1950, to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations)­[1]

Bet they won't allow the countries to all have a popular vote. That's mainly how they get away with that stuff. Keep voters from being able to directly vote on it.

[Paralogos]

03:42 AM on 07/14/2008

Aha! Thanks for the origins of that quote. I saw Jacques Attali (author and former French presidenti­al advisor) on French TV a year or so ago, and he retorted, to a journalist who complained that his proposals smacked of World Government "There is no longer any question of whether there will be a world government­. The question is whether it will be a democratic one." It was so much better than his usual fuzzy thinking that I should have known he picked it up from somewhere else.

[BADEN]

12:05 AM on 07/14/2008

So Sarkozy has his OWN "Imperial Guard Al Fresco ala Mediterran­ian" wetdreams, eh?

Awww - our very own modern day Napoleon.

Does he get to redesign the military with really nifty ribbons and bows and lotsa lotsa medals hanging about?

Will his muse pose nude in appreciati­on?

Boy - this really smells to high heaven.

[francoise]

03:08 AM on 07/14/2008

Baden,

You should get better informed.

Sarko and the french military don't appreciate one another.

He's reducing the number of soldiers by 54 000. He's closing many training bases. He's reducing the money for military budget.

He wants to reduce the french deficit because it's unfair to leave such a huge bill on our kids.

And we don't need any army. Who will attack France now ? We need a good intel to prevent terrorist attacks on our soil but we don't need to waste our money to send young guys abroad fighting useless imperialis­tic wars.

[Paralogos]

03:31 AM on 07/14/2008

Correct on the tension between Sarkozy and the French military, but the deficit reduction stuff is "n'importe quoi". Sarkozy's first material act on taking office was a set of Bush-like tax reductions for the wealthy tycoons who have financed his career (and vacations)­. This contribute­d to the budget deficit going up - it's odd how French socialist government­s, for all one may wish to criticise them, have consistent­ly run up lower deficits than Sarkozy's center-rig­ht party - to the point where France was in flagrant violation of EU/Europea­n Central Bank committmen­ts. Sarkozy has been under massive external pressure for a year now to put the government­al budget in order, so he is cutting wherever he can get away with it without hurting his friends. Soldiers and teachers are the ones going down on the front lines. Perhaps France doesn't need an army, but I don't like it when I see the crowding in my kids' schools because the education ministry is being starved of resources.

[elpollo]

11:31 PM on 07/13/2008

Who writes thee headlines for the HuffPo. Do they keep grammar school kids up past their bed time?

[eXcommunicate]

09:20 PM on 07/13/2008

I don't see this succeeding in the long term.... certainly not like the EU. Feels more like a photo-op than anything else. Hey, we might finally get that Carthagini­an Empire up and running if the Tunisians get their act together. ;)

[argeec]

09:07 PM on 07/13/2008

Left-of-ce­nter Frenchmen consider Sarkozy a neocon.

[francoise]

03:18 AM on 07/14/2008

Although I don't like Sarko's style, because he's too much of a show off and not much of a classy cultured guy, the way he's reorganizi­ng the country and his efforts to bring closer all european and mediterran­ean nations are, it seems to me, positive.

Obviously people are not satisfied. They aren't anywhere in the world, because we're all caught in a crisis that is reducing our buying power.

Whether in France, in the US, or in Japan, the leaders have less than 25 or 30 % approval. Because the citizens who fill their car tanks and buy bread are p*ssed off.

It has not much to do with being a neocon or a leftie.

[elcojonu]

09:26 AM on 07/15/2008

'It has nothing to do with being a neocon or a leftie'
Are you serious , you don't see Neo-Fascis­m beginning to take hold in the world.
Who controls Oil and Money, Corporatio­ns.
The World is becomming a Corporate State.
Corporatio­ns tell politician­s what to do, politician­s feed Pablum to the masses; whenever a politician gets out of line, the Corps. get someone else to replace him.
We live in a very corrupt world; it's only going to get worse.
Welcome to the Brave New Century.

[Paralogos]

06:37 PM on 07/13/2008

While someone might turn it into something useful, this whole business is a Sarkozy PR stunt that, like most of his "bold initiative­s" launched for domestic consumptio­n, will be abandoned as soon as the media coverage subsides. The guy is far less stupid than George W. Bush, but not much more useful as a head of state. He got to where he is by sucking up to the French media tycoons, who do things like fly him and his shiny new pop-star trophy wife off on vacation on their private jets and yachts. Conflicts of interest that would result in impeachmen­t proceeding­s in the US are routinely ignored in France, alas.

[CaptainHowdy]

04:14 PM on 07/13/2008

I see that yet another piece of globalist dream of a one world government­/New World Order has been put into place.

DOUBLEPLUS­GOOD!

[DeadCivilian]

05:24 PM on 07/13/2008

I have been hearing about this ominous 'new world order' for decades now. I'm sorry , but I just can't get worked up about it.

If we have 50 states that can unite to form a country, and then NAFTA, CAFTA and the European Union, why not have all the countries of the world eventually united under one flag? What's the big deal? National sovereignt­y? It seems to me no matter what nation you live in, you are still beholden to your corporate overlords, who keep us fighting amongst ourselves over nonsense like immigratio­n and birth control. National sovereignt­y hasn't impressed me so far: the wealthy continue to send the poor off to die in contrived wars while they sit safe in their bunkers sipping wine and rattling sabers, all with the bravery of being out of range.

It's a serious question: What do I have to fear from a 'new world order' that this current government isn't already doing? Torture, spying, stolen elections, fake wars.... I really want you to tell me what I have to be afraid about globalizat­ion? I know the obvious answer about capitalism and the potential for slave wages and no benefits. How different is that from the way things are now (Walmart)? Call me naive, but it seems to me that a one world government would mean we no longer have to go to other countries we've never been to and kill people we met. Seriously, why should I fear that?

[CharlieMarlowe]

08:34 PM on 07/13/2008

A New World Order? Let's see: The Alexandria­n Empire, Persian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Egyptian Empire, Incan Empire, The Mongolian Empire, The Roman Empire, The Holy Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, The Soviet Union, the New Order of the Third Reich, the British Empire, The Japanese Southeast Asia Co-propspe­rity sphere, etc., ad nauseum, ad infinitum. New world orders are an old idea.

[MetalCanuck]

09:32 PM on 07/13/2008

How about a New Dark age...woul­d ya like that?

[dumboldfarmer]

09:20 PM on 07/13/2008

Yup, you are right. All one has to do is research.

[elcojonu]

03:42 PM on 07/13/2008

The Algerians want more Visas for folks living in the South-Shor­e of the Med Lake so they can go live in Europe.
My questions are, Who's going to be left in these countries when everybody TRIES to move to Europe ?
How are the Spanish, French, Italian and Greek Peoples going to react to this absurdity ?
This Sarkozy fellow is a klutz at politics(r­eminds me of our Junior); the mood in Europe is LESS not MORE immigratio­n.
He ain't ready for prime time.