The wider Mediterranean (including the Balkans) is Europe’s strategic test
The challenge is to integrate the markets, but first we need a single concept of security. We have the Munich Conference. But there is still no annual Euro-Mediterranean conference. The EU was wrong to treat Russia’s aggression against Georgia as a distant warning. That is why we must regard the South Caucasus and countries such as Montenegro as our own border
by Jordi Xuclà
The Mediterranean must become the foundation for the development and consolidation of a broader area linking the European Union with the Western Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East, the Gulf and, via the South Caucasus, Central Asia. It must be the area in which the EU’s future enlargement merges with its external outreach. For too long, Euro-Mediterranean policy has produced too many institutions with too little power: institutions, declarations, ministerial meetings, action plans. Not all of this has always been useful. None of this is enough. The region is not short of institutional declarations. We are tired of reading statements expressing ‘deep concern’ and little else.
The Barcelona Process
The Barcelona Process, launched in 1995, remains the best point of reference because it had a method. It organised Euro-Mediterranean relations around political dialogue, economic partnership, and social, cultural and human cooperation. Concrete items on the agenda, achievable objectives: association agreements, trade liberalisation, university exchanges and financial cooperation. It had its limitations, but for the first time it created an attractive project and a common framework. Jean Monnet’s advice on European integration is also what should guide this Mediterranean challenge: Europe would not be built in a single stroke, nor according to a single blueprint, but through concrete achievements capable of creating genuine solidarity. The Mediterranean needs precisely this: fewer theatrical summits and more interconnections; fewer final communiqués and more ports, electricity grids, laboratories, student mobility, security channels and investment platforms.
The Union for the Mediterranean has sought to breathe new life into the legacy of Barcelona. It has brought all EU Member States into the cooperation framework. It has not worked as originally envisaged. A broader forum may mean greater legitimacy, but also less agility. The UfM’s intergovernmental machinery has proved too cumbersome for a region where crises unfold faster than press releases. At the institutional level, for example, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean is at a low ebb and remains constrained by the limitations of the entire UfM system. By contrast, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean has demonstrated the strength of an autonomous parliamentary body: flexibility, initiative, political proximity, and the ability to bring together legislators, experts, businesses and security actors without waiting for perfect diplomatic alignment – which will never materialise. In a fragmented region, parliamentary diplomacy that is independent of executive powers is the only form that works.
We are optimistic, because in this case the economy is performing better than the institutions. Trade in goods between the European Union and its Southern Neighbourhood reached around 248 billion euros in 2025. The EU remains, by far, the region’s main trading partner. The current Union for the Mediterranean brings together over 800 million people. Yet the region’s political and economic integration still falls short of its strategic importance. Too many connections continue to operate vertically, between a southern partner and Europe, rather than horizontally within the Mediterranean itself. Too little regional value is being created. Too many young people in the South continue to see migration solely as a way out, rather than as a form of mobility that would allow them to return to a country that has, in the meantime, made progress.
The Mediterranean Pact
The new Mediterranean Pact promoted by the European Commission and the European External Action Service could prove useful if it becomes a driving force for projects. Mediterranean university initiatives, alliances for clean technologies, planned labour mobility in both directions, disaster preparedness, energy interconnections and cooperation on security matters. The Pact must be assessed as an investment portfolio. What has been built? What has been funded? What has been connected? Who has benefited? Energy is a good area to explore. The Mediterranean has the potential to become a major hub for clean energy: solar, wind, green hydrogen, marine renewables, port electrification, battery value chains, desalination, electricity interconnectors and maritime technologies. The European Trans-Mediterranean Cooperation Initiative for Renewable Energy and Clean Technologies, which aims to mobilise up to €25 billion by 2035, points in the right direction. The strategic challenge is for both sides of the Mediterranean to build industrial value together.
