Impact of Conflicts Between Member Countries
Among the 43 member countries of the Union for the Mediterranean, there are three unresolved conflicts that hinder the works of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: the Arab-Israeli, Cyprus-Turkish and Western Sahara (which, unlike the Palestinian Authority, is not part of the Union for the Mediterranean.) The European Union Ambassador to Morocco, Eneko Landaburu, stated on September 2010 that he does "not believe" in the Union for the Mediterranean. According to him, the division among the Arabs "does not allow to implement a strong inter-regional policy", and calls to leave this ambitious project of 43 countries behind and focus on bilateral relations.
The fact that all the decisions, from the lowest to the highest level, in the Union for the Mediterranean are taken "by the principle of consensus" facilitates the blockage of the Partnership's work every time tensions rise between the countries involved in these conflicts.
Due to its seriousness, the Arab-Israeli conflict is the one that most deeply affects the Union for the Mediterranean. As a result of Israel's operation against the Hamas regime in Gaza Strip at the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009, the Arab Group refused to meet at high level, thus blocking all the ministerial meetings scheduled for the first half of 2009. As well, the refusal of the Arab Ministers of Foreign Affairs to meet with their Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman, resulted in the cancellation of two ministerial meetings on Foreign Affairs on November 2009 and June 2010. Sectorial meetings of the Union for the Mediterranean have also been affected by Arab attempts to push forward an anti-Israel ideology. At the Euro-Mediterranean ministerial meeting on Water, held in Barcelona on April 2010, the Water Strategy was not approved due to a terminological disagreement of whether to refer to territories claimed by Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese as "occupied territories" or "territories under occupation." Two other ministerial meetings, on higher education and agriculture, had to be cancelled because of the same discrepancy.
The conflict between Turkey and Cyprus has been responsible for the delay in the endorsement of the statutes of the Secretariat, which were only approved in March 2010 even though the Marseille declaration set May 2009 as the deadline for the Secretariat to start functioning. At the Paris summit, the Heads of State and Government agreed to establish five Deputy Secretaries General from Greece, Israel, Italy, Malta and the Palestinian Authority. Turkey's desire to have a Deputy Secretary General and Cyprus' rejection of it, resulted in months of negotiation until Cyprus finally approved the creation of a sixth Deputy Secreaty General post assigned to a Turkish citizen.
Western Sahara is a source of conflict between Algeria and Morocco. The lack of diplomatic relations among these two countries, along with the unresolved dispute over the sovereignty of Western Sahara, prevent the implementation of any intra-Maghreb projects, such as the railway and highway initiatives, as the stagnation of the Arab Maghreb Union proves.
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