The EU's generosity towards northern Africa looks more like a Trojan Horse, warns Eva Dadrian Starting 1 July for six months, France will assume the presidency of the Council of the European Union. This was to be the dream-opportunity for President Nicolas Sarkozy to put his footprint on the decision-making process and influence the direction of European Union policy. Unfortunately, with Ireland's decisive rejection of the EU reform treaty, France's upcoming presidency of the EU is starting on the wrong foot. The Irish "no" vote is not the only problem that the French president will have to deal with. Two major and controversial issues are also on the agenda: the Mediterranean Union and the Economic Partnership Agreements. Both issues are much criticised by African and Southern Mediterranean partners of the European Union. Even before taking up office as president of France just a year ago, Sarkozy was proposing the creation of a Euro- Mediterranean zone of peace and prosperity, a common market with most of the economic advantages of EU membership. However, a couple of thorny factors could hamper the completion of such partnership. The unity of the Arabs as well as that of the Africans is at stake. Talking to the presidents of Algeria, Syria, Tunisia and Mauritania and the prime minister of Morocco gathered at the mini-summit he had organised last week, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi has gone one step further by calling the French proposal "an insult to Arabs and Africans". The Mediterranean Union separates the five North African countries -- Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt -- from the rest of the continent, and thus threatens the regional integration of Africa and its unity. In addition, this new proposed separation of Arab North Africa from the rest of the continent has all the ingredients of former colonial classic "divide and rule" policies. It goes against all the efforts to drive forward common action throughout the entire continent which the reformed African Union has been working on since 2002. At the top of the agenda of the proposed Mediterranean Union are environmental issues, solar energy and projects related to civil defence and water conservation. All these issues concern not only North Africa but the entire continent. They are part and parcel of the NEPAD (New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development) and for which NEPAD has established regional organisations. The EU's proposal for the Euro-Mediterranean zone is in fact sabotaging the very project of the African Common Market, not to mention the actual COMESA (Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa) in which Libya and Egypt are members. Furthermore, the fact that Israel is among the Mediterranean candidates eligible to join the new bloc has made some Arab Mediterranean states extremely nervous. Algeria, Lebanon and Libya, to some extend, have balked at the idea of being a member of a union that will include Israel. While Morocco, Tunisia and the Palestinian Authority have already announced their support for the creation of the union, Algeria is asking for clarification "on the consequences of Israel's presence inside the Union" and will announce its position only after a 12 July foreign ministers meeting of Union candidate countries. As for the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with six African Caribbean and Pacific countries, they have become a source of controversies, even within the French government, let alone the EU or Africa. Despite all the evidence, the EU insists that the EPAs will not undermine the regional integration of Africa. Within the South African Development Community (SADC), South Africa refused to sign on the principle that any new trade pact with the EU should address its real impacts on Africa, but found itself isolated as Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique signed interim agreements in November, followed by Namibia. The same division happened within the East African Community with Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania accepting to sign the interim agreements. According to many development NGOs, in particularly Oxfam, which has taken a very strong position against the agreements, the EPAs have "strayed far from the development template they were supposed to follow." Oxfam analysts estimate that the annual losses from tariff cuts would well be $230 million for Africa alone. In addition they reckon that the agreements mean that African states are to loose their independence in the formulation of their trade policy. In conclusion, the EPAs will reduce African nations to weak partners, subjected to international institutions that dictate trade rules and policies in which Africans will have no say. Major question remain to be answered: what would happen to existing agreements between African countries and the EU? Will Sarkozy take into consideration all these agreements and their impacts on Africa when he will try to sell his Union Pour la Méditerranée on the eve of Bastille Day?
