Mediterranean Union: Sarkozy is a step towards Merkel

Nicolas Sarkozy, in an effort to defuse a worrisome disagreement between Paris and Berlin, has made concessions to Angela Merkel on his draft Mediterranean Union, without ambiguities, the experts felt Tuesday.

Since Tuesday, the Prime Minister Francois Fillon french and German government differed on the contents of the compromise "the Union for the Mediterranean", announced by the German chancellor and the president french Monday evening in Hanover.

The announcement was all the more spectacular than discord was evident, leaving speculate on a sustainable blurs.

"We have found a compromise around the Union for the Mediterranean we all want and that the two excluded person," said Sarkozy.

"We agree that this is a project of the EU," said Merkel who has defined as a reinforcement "to a higher level" of the Euro-Mediterranean Barcelona, which was launched in 1995 and currently down.

Mr. Sarkozy has announced a "Franco-German proposal at the next European Council" on 13/14 March in Brussels on the project.

The Germans considered it unacceptable a draft excluding non-Europeans bordering on the Mediterranean. The only option is an ambitious project open to the 27 EU countries: African immigration by Gibraltar has implications in Madrid as in Tallinn, Berlin argues.

A draft restricted to a few countries bordering carries a high risk for the division of Europe, Germany is looking to its neighbours to the east and so forth, arguing Angela Merkel.

For Martin Koopmann of the German Society for Foreign Policy (DGAP), the German firm has paid: "Sarkozy has abandoned a crucial point, the involvement of countries bordering only."

Ulrike Guérot of the European Council for External Relations (ECFR) said that "evidence was made" in Hanover that "when it becomes too serious in the Franco-German couple, mechanisms operate." "There is an emergency brake and enough institutional mechanisms to prevent the crisis behind and degenerate," she says.

According to Ernst Hillebrand, of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Mr. Sarkozy is "learning": "depart from its policy announcements" and "discord like that around the Mediterranean Union will become increasingly rare."

Mr. Hillebrand, both partners have to make concessions. "The French must accept grin teeth they can not do everything alone at European level", but "Germany should consent to France more leeway."

Henrik Uterwedde of the German-French Institute in Ludwigsburg (southwest), does not mean that the dispute be ended: "when we break two or three times porcelain, recoller demand much more time. (. ..) Yesterday's meeting could not erase everything. Waiting acts. "

In Paris, it is assumed, for example, that funding issues are not settled, because they are the purview of the EU states.

A government spokesman in Berlin said Tuesday that a comparison made a few hours earlier by Mr. Fillon between the EU and Mediterranean cooperation forum "Council of the Baltic Sea" did not correspond to the state of discussions. What has been agreed "has nothing to do with the Council of Baltic Sea States," said a spokesman in Berlin.

This council is certainly noted the experts, a forum for cooperation of some without excluding other, but with limited powers well: "Knowing Sarkozy and ambitions of France, I doubt that he wants to create a widget for the gallery "Henrik Uterwedde judge.