The Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone: Prospects and Possibilities

A free trade zone is a customs area within which the constituent states abolish all import-export tariffs and overall trade barriers without undertaking the obligation for the imposition of an external tariff system. ¹ The creation of the Euro-Mediterranean Free Trade Zone (FTZ) constitutes a challenge for the European Union, given the diverse character of the southern Mediterranean states. Indeed, the Mediterranean constitutes the natural as well as the pragmatic boundary between two worlds that share fewer similarities than differences in economic, sociopolitical, and religious areas.

The Barcelona Declaration of 1995 was founded on exactly those very premises. It provides the basis on which the relations between the EU and "third Mediterranean countries" (TMCs) could be enhanced, through cooperation on important sectors, with emphasis given on the political and economic areas. The creation of the FTZ, coupled with the necessary financial assistance, was an economic event aimed at eliminating the so-called prosperity gap, which exists nowadays between the two partners on the different sides of the Mediterranean Sea. Prosperity gaps are an issue of importance, given the fact that overall security and political cooperation in the wider Mediterranean region are impossible to achieve without economic stability and the multilevel rapprochement of the people. Such a rapprochement assumes a constructive synthesis of values and the elimination of the prosperity gap through the overall convergence of the two worlds.

The Evolution of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

The starting point of the relations between the EU and the TMCs are traceable to 1957, when a protocol included in the Treaty of Rome, concluded that year, provided for the conclusion of agreements between the then European Economic Community (EEC) and Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Though a good first step, these arrangements did not provide an overall plan for a Mediterranean policy, since they constituted the last act of economic cooperation between former European colonial states and newly independent states or those in the process of becoming independent. ² Essentially, the EU's first coherent Mediterranean policy evolved after 1972 because of a series of events. Among them was the oil crisis of the 1970s, the accession of the United Kingdom, Denmark, and Ireland to the EEC, the accession of Israel and Spain to the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), and the establishment of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), which since 1964 has aimed at the creation of more fair and extensive cooperation between the EEC and the European Mediterranean countries. However, it was only after 1991 that the EU pursued a concrete Mediterranean policy reflected in the context of its Renovated Mediterranean Policy. ³ The Lisbon European Council of June 1992 concluded that "the Mediterranean constitutes a region of priority with strategic importance for the EU . . . [especially] the south and eastern coast of the Mediterranean, as well as the Middle East, are geographic areas with a great interest for the Union both from the point of view of security but also from that of social stability."

On 19 October 1994, the EU's intention to "strengthen its Mediterranean policy" and create a partnership with the TMCs was formalized in a document that links the TMCs and the EU. As it states, "This document affirms that . . . there are a lot of areas of interdependence between Europe and the Mediterranean countries. [These have to do with] the environment, energy, migration, trade and investment [and it is of] vital importance for the EU to assist the Mediterranean countries to overcome the challenges they face." ⁴

The official partnership between the EU and the TMCs was finally established on 27-28 November 1995. The institutional framework of this relation is embodied in the Barcelona Declaration, which is based on three pillars, namely (1) the political and security pillar, the establishment of which has as a long-term aim the creation of a common area of peace and stability; (2) the economic and financial pillar, which aims at...