Fathallah Sijilmassi: the Union for the Mediterranean in a new regional context

Fathallah Sijilmassi, UfM Secretary-General, was the guest speaker at the CIDOB European Breakfast held on 21 September. His address aimed at conveying the idea that the UfM, after a slow and hesitant postnatal period, is in for a new start based on new dynamics.Ambassador Sijilmassi presented the audience with a fact and a question: the political problems related to the Middle-East question that blocked the way of the Barcelona Process (BP) are still there; so, what do we do --nothing?The context at present is that of a crisis-torn, self-centered European Union, and a Mediterranean southside focusing on quite diverse post-revolution political transitions.

 In this context, there are now other directions for the actors to look at (the Gulf, Asia, the Atlantic) and other possible associates to do business with. But the challenge remainsfor Euro-Mediterranean countries to actually do something. In this respect the UfM, Sijilmassi said, is here to be used.The UfM’smission is to promote regional cooperation/integration and it is a particularly useful platform for three main reasons: it is project-oriented (projects tend to be technical –i.e. a cross-border highway--, but also very political –i.e. the very same highway);it is capable of sitting around a table the actors from North and South (even if some of them are not speaking to each other), and it acts as a permanent lobby to get Mediterranean questions on the global agenda. 

Now a team of fifty, the UfM’s secretariat in Barcelona is working to reach cruise speed by 2013. Of course, Sijilmassi acknowledged, the question mark of the international context will always be suspended over our heads; but the UfM shall do its job at delivering projects –it’ll be up to the member countries to pick them up or not.Sijilmassi further explained that the UfM, as a member-driven organization, does what members decide to do. They could decide (as Spanish Foreign Minister García-Margallo defends) that all projects related to the Mediterranean be channeled through it. Failing this, coordination is all-important(the UfM is invited as an observer to boththe 5+5 and the Arab League meetings).Answering questions from the floor about the Barcelona Process (a European initiative that was derailed by Sarkozy with the creation of the UfM as an international body),Sijilmassistressed that, to him, the UfMis the BP, in the sense that the former (at least in its last, 2012 version) overcomes the shortcomings of the latter –for one: the BP’s approach was top-down, whereas the UfM’s is bottom-up. 

The UfM is the direct descendant of the BP, Sijilmassi said, in the sense that it has drawn the necessary lessons from it.Sijilmassi also confessed that he personally feels he has been wrong,for many years, to think that Mediterranean matters only concern Mediterranean countries. He now thinks it is very important to include a wider circle of partners beyond our little Mediterranean club. We must invest and lobby in non-Mediterranean countries, he said –but we still need Mediterranean countries as a driving force (even if countries in Southern Europe are now weaker due to the impact of the crisis).A final remark by Ambassador Sijilmassi, answering a question on Mali: you cannot understand the Mediterranean without the African hinterland; the Mediterranean centrality cannot be understood without the African dimension, any more than without the European dimension.