EU: The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership was set up 10 years ago to nurture peace and stability in the Middle East and north Africa. Its goals remain a long way off, writes Rory Miller
This weekend the European Union's 25 foreign ministers and 10 of their counterparts from the Arab world, Israel and Turkey gather in Barcelona to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership - the Barcelona process.
Launched in 1995 to promote the economic and political development of the Mediterranean, it was widely hoped that this framework would provide, in the words of Selim al-Sayed, Tunisia's then foreign minister, "a historic opportunity that could enable the area to formulate a comprehensive strategy for development".
Dick Spring, Ireland's minister for foreign affairs at the time, echoed these sentiments, describing the process as "an important co-operative instru-ment for the Mediterranean region . . . it has considerable potential for bridging gaps and assisting the development of peace, stability and prosperity in the Mediterranean area".
A decade on, there is a lot less optimism over the capacity of the Barcelona framework to deliver peace, stability or prosperity.
It has failed dismally to promote some of its key political and security goals: the peaceful resolution of disputes; a Middle East free, and verifiably free, of weapons of mass destruction; a move towards a pluralistic society and the spread of democracy and human rights.
And while there has been more success in the economic sphere, the Barcelona process's overriding focus on trade liberalisation leading to the establishment of a free trade area between the EU and the Mediterranean by 2010 has brought negative socio-economic consequences for all but the most advanced Mediterranean partners.
The Irish experience has been better.
From the time of Irish entry into the EEC in 1973 until the rise of the Celtic Tiger in the 1990s, successive governments, semi-State bodies and private firms worked hard to develop trade in this region in areas of traditional expertise, such as beef and live cattle, electricity generation, healthcare, construction and education.
This was nurtured by a number of bilateral economic agreements that culminated in 1987 with the establishment of an Arab-Irish Chamber of Commerce in Dublin that offered technical and administrative services to Irish firms interested in doing business in the Arab world.
But the introduction of the Barcelona process, with its emphasis on free trade and open markets, at the time of a global high-tech boom provided the best opportunity to date for Ireland to expand its economic role in the region.
Over the last decade Ireland's trade and economic links with the Barcelona partners have expanded greatly, especially in the areas of technology transfer and joint production and investment projects.
Take Egypt, for example. Before 1995 there was no recorded foreign direct investment by Ireland in Egypt, but since the beginning of the Barcelona era Irish firms have invested €37.3 million in the country, making Ireland a bigger investor there than EU partners such as Greece, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Austria or Finland. In September 2003, International Development Ireland Ltd signed a major agreement with the Gulf of Suez Authority in which the Irish body was appointed the external adviser on the establishment of a special economic zone in the gulf.
Then minister for foreign affairs Brian Cowen described the Irish role in this "prestigious and flagship" project as an "acknowledgement of the success of Ireland's own industrial and economic transformation in recent years".
Nor were these growing ties with the Arab world negatively affected by Ireland's booming economic relationship with Israel over the same period.
Indeed, the decision to harness the enormous potential for co-operation with Israel in technology-led industries - most notably in the areas of data processing, scientific instruments, optics equipment and financial software - actually made Ireland a more, not less, attractive partner for the Muslim Middle East, which itself was looking to co-operate in the areas of telecommunications, air transport and financial services.
Given all of this, it is little wonder that the Irish Government is such a keen advocate of the Barcelona process's emphasis on free trade.
Late last year Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern announced a decision to provide €1 million between 2005 and 2009 to help the Barcelona partners to "meet the challenges of modernisation and integration" that are necessary if a free trade area is to be established by 2010.
Free trade undoubtedly has an important role to play in the economic development of the Mediterranean.
However, so far its main beneficiaries have been the advanced European economies, like Ireland, not their poorer southern partners.
As the 10th anniversary celebrations get under way, we should not lose sight of this fact.
Rory Miller is a senior lecturer in Mediterranean studies at King's College, University of London