EU TURNS SIGHTS SOUTH,

ACCROSS MEDITERRANEAN

Proposed Economic and Security Pact would create largest free-trade zone.

by Tom Buerkle

(International Herald Tribune, October 20, 1994)

The European Commission proposed an economic and security pact Wednesday with countries of the Middle East and North Africa to stem the threat of political instability and mass migration.

The plan, which would include the world's largest free trade zone, says population growth, a yawning wealth gap and the threat of Islamic fundamentalism make the southern Mediterranean a prime security risk for all of the European Union.

By addressing those risks, the initiative aims to restore cohesion within the Union following complaints by such southern members as France and Spain that the body was ignoring the Mediterranean to pursue a German-led drive to bring Eastern Europe into the Union.

"The problem of the East isn't an exclusive problem of the northern countries of Europe, and the problem of the Mediterranean is not an exclusive problem of the southern countries," said Manuel Marin, the Spanish development commissioner who presented the EU executive body's plan.

Mr. Marin's proposal, which will be put to Union leaders at their summit meeting in December in Essen, Germany, calls for more than doubling aid to the region, to 5.5 billion European currency units ($7 billon) over the next five years, and to convoke a peace and security conference among EU and Mediterranean countries in 1995 to agree on a framework for cooperation.

A free-trade area involving the Union, its prospective members in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean would contain as many as 40 countries and up to 800 million people, more than double the size of the North American Free Trade Area of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Mr. Marin said it would take at least 18 months to negotiate such an accord, and perhaps 15 years to actually dismantle trade barriers.

But the strategy, which is by far the most ambitious attempt yet by the Union to forge a common foreign policy, faces hurdles that are as lofty as its intentions.

One European Union diplomat cited a "cleavage of interest" between such northern member states as Germany and Britain, which want to offer mainly trade concessions, and southern states, which emphasize aid over trade, fearing that greater imports of fruit and vegetables from across the Mediterranean could hurt domestic producers.

France is the EU member most exposed to the issue, with 1.6 million people of North African origins on its territory and the risk of many more arriving if Algeria's government collapses.

Diplomats said it is hesitant about the Union's taking the initiative in an area where it has long-standing interests.

Paris has made it clear that it will not act as host to the forum while it holds the revolving EU presidency, in the first half of 1995, to avoid stoking disputes before the presidential election in April and May, diplomats said.

Instead, they said, Spain intends to organize the conference when it holds the presidency, in the second half of the year.

It also remains unclear just what such a conference should discuss, and who should attend.

Mr. Marin said the gathering should draw up a charter for cooperation on issues ranging from trade and oil and gas projects to security issues like terrorism, drugs, immigration and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Such a charter could lead to a Mediterranean institution patterned on the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.

That prospect chills some Union members, who want to limit contacts to ad hoc groups focused largely on economic issues.

"The last thing we need is a new institution," an Italian official said.

The plan is predicated on support for Democracy and human rights, which Mr. Marin acknowledged would be "one of the most difficult questions to negotiate."

It is also far from clear that Mediterranean countries will agree to clamp down on emigration and drug trafficking in return for aid, which many Union countries are expected to demand, officials said.

Tom BUERKLE