MOSAIC - The training kit for Euro-Mediterranean youth work

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The Barcelona Declaration 54 expressed the three main objectives of the Partnership:
Establishing a common Euro-Mediterranean area of peace and stability based on
fundamental principles including respect for human rights and democracy, through
the reinforcement of political and security dialogue (Political and Security
Chapter);
Creating an area of shared prosperity through the progressive establishment of
a free-trade area between the EU and its Partners, and among the Mediterranean
Partners themselves, accompanied by substantial EU financial support for economic
transition in the Partner countries and for the social and economic consequences
of this reform process (Economic and Financial Chapter); and,
Developing human resources, promoting understanding between cultures and
rapprochement of the peoples in the Euro-Mediterranean region through a social,
cultural and human partnership aimed at encouraging understanding between
cultures and exchanges between flourishing civil societies (Social, Cultural and
Human Chapter).
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership has two complementary dimensions. The European
Union carries out a number of activities bilaterally with each country. The regional
dimension refers to multilateral relations and regional co-operation, designed to
support and complement the bilateral actions and dialogue. Regional dialogue also
covers the political, economic and cultural fields (regional co-operation). It has a
strategic impact as it deals with problems common to many Mediterranean partners
while it emphasises national complementarities.
The MEDA programme is the principal financial instrument of the EU for the implementation
of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. It offers technical and financial support
to accompany the reform of economic and social structures in the Mediterranean
partners through funds dedicated to co-operation programmes, projects and other
supporting activities.
D 1.6.2 The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership:
a shared vision or imposed co-operation? 55
Euro-Mediterranean politics have always been determined by international, regional
and domestic dynamics. Thus, it will be very misleading to take the Euro-Mediterranean
as an entity by itself. Any analysis of it must be considered in relation to greater global
and inter-regional influences and relationships. At the global level, the terror attacks
of 11 September 2001, the involvement of the United States of America (USA) in the
Middle East as a hegemonic power (based on the so-called idea of preventive war)
and a divide of ‘the West versus Islam’ have put large obstacles in the way of the
Barcelona process. 56 In the regional context, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also has
great implications in relation to the Arab countries, the EU and the USA. Regional
developments such as the change of political elites in some of the Mediterranean
countries, but also the evolution of a unilateral European Security and Defence Policy
and the process of EU enlargement, have had a decisive impact on the evolution of
politics in the Mediterranean too. 57 It has been suggested that most of these developments
have been disadvantageous to the political and socio-economic processes that had
started to prosper in the aftermath of the cold war. 58
Themes