The economic roots of the Arab and Maghreb crisis have not been properly examined. The spark that fuelled the first uprising in Tunisia was the humiliation of a street vendor. Denied his chance to make some money he set himself on fire and like Jan Palach in Prague or the Buddhist monks in Vietnam in the 1960, he unleashed a new historical process.
While the west focuses on political outcomes (Islamist and Salafist influences, the role of the military, human rights in Libya, or the repression in Syria) we have lost sight of the need to provide a material basis for a better life of the citizens in the newly awakened nations.
The consolidation of democracy in the post-communist countries in eastern Europe after 1989 was based on their integration into the European and global market. Inward investment, open trade, and transfer of management and technology from west Europe helped by diasporas across the world were crucial.
Southern EU member states suffer from problems of competitiveness. They cannot all become Germany or the Netherlands, exporting to the rest of Europe while holding down demand domestically. Instead they should play to the strengths of agricultural and artisanal production, tourism, culture and a place where northern Europeans find repose, even retirement.
France, Spain and Italy have world competitive agro-industries which could incorporate into their chain of production agricultural exports from Tunisia and Morocco. Greece Italy and Spain can help develop transport and infrastructure to build bridges across the Mediterranean.
EU trade with the entire Mediterranean is absurdly low. Excluding Turkey, trade with the EU’s Mediterranean neighbours was just 5 per cent of EU total external trade in 2010. EU trade with the 85 million people in Egypt was just 0.8 per cent of total trade.
EU Foreign Direct Investment in North Africa stood at €47 bn, or 1.5 per cent of EU-27’s total overseas investment in 2009. This compares to €413 bn in Asia (12.7 per cent) or Central America (including Mexico) where the EU invests €297 bn (9.1 per cent).
The Commission and External Action Service certainly have made a public declaration in support of economic as well as political development. The European Investment Bank plans to increase by one third its lending to Mediterranean countries by 2013 and the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) has extended its mandate to cover businesses in the region.
But as with other initiatives, the Barcelona Process or the Union for the Mediterranean, these initiatives may achieve little unless backed up by a new coherent south-south approach. This means in particular creating a full open and free trade partnership in agricultural and textile industries between southern EU member states and the Mahgreb. Yes, vested interests will resist, demand quotas, tariffs and the comfortable guided capitalism in North Africa will be unhappy as companies are taken over by stronger European firms.
But surely it is better to import textiles from North Africa and give jobs to Mediterranean dwellers rather than privilege China as the main supplier of cheap clothes. Many of the textile and agro-industry firms in southern Europe depend on imported cheap labour which brings with it all the tensions of immigration and identity which Europe faces. Is it not better to offer hope and work to Tunisians, Moroccans, Libyans and Egyptians by allowing them to stay chez eux as properly treated and paid workers of European firms?
In fact, unemployment, notably amongst young people in Spain, Greece and Portugal is often higher than in North Africa or on a par. There is a shared misery between southern Europe and North Africa as economics and politics combine to reduce hope.
The European model that, however imperfectly, has proved its worth over six decades of integration and growth, namely open markets, open investment, open trade – should be revisited. Europe looked east for 20 years after 1989 with great success. Europe should now look south.
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Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and former Europe Minister
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