The economic impact of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership on the agriculture sector of the European Union and its Mediterranean partners

Abstract

Since 1960 the European Union has developed a range of policies to achieve closer relations with Mediterranean countries, and it has created a framework, which has enabled it to achieve key relationships going beyond the traditional limits of mere trading relations. From the beginning of the 1990s, the European Union, after similar experience in its own area, sought to establish links with Mediterranean countries with a view to developing more dynamic forms of cooperation, and to avoiding the situation which had prevailed up to then, in which Europe would prepare proposals for cooperation and the Mediterranean partners would either accept or reject them, although they did not all have the technical knowledge to develop and manage these proposals. A decisive step in this direction was the Barcelona Inter-Ministerial Declaration, at a conference in which 27 countries took part (15 Members of the European Union and 12 Mediterranean countries), where the foundations were laid for the implementation of an ambitious plan comprising three key objectives: • A political and security component aimed at defining a common area of peace and stability; • An economic and financial component aimed at building an area of shared prosperity (establishing a Free Trade Zone in 2010); • A human, social and cultural progress. One of the most important features of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is the Free Trade Area that is due to take place by the year 2010. The Free Trade Area is undoubtedly advantageous to the Mediterranean countries but the benefits would be much bigger if agriculture were to be included completely - particularly as it would increase substantially farmers' income and strengthen stability in the rural regions of the Mediterranean. In the relatively short period of seven years since the start of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, considerable success has been achieved, but the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership is still a long way from achieving the results originally expected from it.