C Explanatory memorandum by Mrs Papadimitriou,
rapporteur
1. Mr Denis Badre’s report on “Euro-Mediterranean region:
call for a Council of Europe strategy” indicates and opens a door
for the Council of Europe to examine and monitor the ongoing process
within the Euro-Mediterranean region towards peace and stability.
There are useful references to the Council of Europe’s previous
resolutions, to other international fora and embedded co-operation
with established partnerships (Barcelona Process, European Neighbourhood
Policy, European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity,
EUR-OPA, Med Net and others) and a call for interaction with the
already existing Mediterranean parliamentary assemblies – the Euro-Mediterranean
Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA) and the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Mediterranean (PAM).
2. It is, however, important to note the difference between the
two regional assemblies: EMPA’s member parliaments derive from all
European Union countries (27), plus some beyond it, while the eastern
and southern states (16) are granted one third of the votes. In
the PAM, which includes the littoral states of the Mediterranean (north
and south), the north-south balance is equal. Needless to say, this
balance has already proven an added value to PAM, the effectiveness
of which is already acknowledged among the member states and by
the United Nations.
Note
3. The Council of Europe has to lend its expertise in the field
of democracy, human rights and the rule of law to the Mediterranean
region. A geopolitical region that is our planet’s most challenging
field for the very application of the Council of Europe’s principles
and values. The fact that the region encompasses countries beyond
the Council of Europe is a pseudo-argument as the impact of the
trans-temporal drama of “mare nostrum” spreads to all European states.
4. Beside the pressing need to resolve the long-standing political
tensions and conflicts and bring peace and stability to the region,
we are faced with the urgent need to stop the environmental degradation
of the Mediterranean Sea and to preserve its biodiversity.
5. The region’s rapid growth in recent decades, while delivering
significant positive impacts for the living conditions of the population,
has, however, largely occurred at the expense of the environmental
balance, which is essential for human well-being, and has often
contributed to an increase in social and economic disparity, which
are characteristic of the Mediterranean basin today. Moreover, difficult
access to scarce resources, such as water and arable land, is becoming
an additional factor for political tension and instability.
6. The issue of sustainable development of the Mediterranean
is the subject of a separate report, currently under preparation
in the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional
Affairs (rapporteur: Mr Joseph Falzon, Malta, EPP/CD), which will
be presented to the Assembly in the course of 2010.
7. In global terms, the year 2010 will be the International Year
of Biodiversity and an important year to set the basis for a low
carbon future by reaching consensus amongst the Parties to the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), especially
in the aftermath of a rather meagre outcome from the high-level
negotiations in Copenhagen (COP15) in December 2009.
8. We know how crucial it will be to achieve firm political and
economic commitments in order to contain climate change within the
projected 2°C increase and to remedy the effects of environmental
degradation across our planet. The growing threats to fragile ecosystems
– such as those in the Mediterranean region – are stark examples
that ought to fuel our political action.
9. As the rapporteur, Mr Denis Badré, rightly mentioned in his
explanatory memorandum, amongst the six priority projects identified
by the Union for the Mediterranean, there are three projects that
are directly related to sustainable development, namely the de-pollution
of the Mediterranean Sea, civil protection initiatives to combat
natural and man-made disasters, and a Mediterranean solar energy
plan.
10. While I would fully agree with Mr Badré’s analysis that the
current activities identified as priority by the Union for the Mediterranean
lack focus on the core issues of democracy, human rights and the
rule of law – which are fundamental to achieve security, political
stability and peace in the Mediterranean region – I would nevertheless
argue that those values cannot be “imposed” on governments, but
instead could be more easily generated – at all levels of society
– through closer co-operation on concrete projects of common interest.
11. Within the Council of Europe, there are several existing mechanisms
in the field of sustainable development that could open up to co-operation
with the Mediterranean countries, namely:
- the Bern Convention (Convention on the Conservation of
European Wildlife and Natural Habitats, 1979) ratified by both Morocco
(2001) and Tunisia (1996). It aims to conserve wild flora and fauna
and their natural habitats and to promote European co-operation
in that field;
- the Pan-European Biological and Landscape Diversity Strategy
(PEBLDS) which was set up in 1995 following the Rio Earth Summit
and the adoption of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.
Endorsed by 54 countries in Europe, eastern Europe and Central Asia,
it supplements the work undertaken in the framework of the Bern
Convention. The principal aim of the strategy is to find a consistent
response to the decline of biological and landscape diversity in
Europe and to integrate biodiversity conservation and sustainability
into the activities of other sectors, such as agriculture, forestry,
fisheries, industry, transport and tourism. The activities could
be further expanded to include co-operation with the countries of
the Mediterranean basin;
- the European and Mediterranean Major Hazards Agreement
(EUR-OPA), created in 1987 as a platform for co-operation between
European and Southern Mediterranean countries in the field of major
natural and technological disasters. EUR-OPA activities cover the
knowledge of hazards, risk prevention, risk management, post-crisis
analysis and rehabilitation. The agreement is “partial”, as not
all member states of the Council of Europe participate, but it is
“open” to non-member countries and today includes Algeria, Lebanon
and Morocco as full members;
12. At the level of the Parliamentary Assembly, the Committee
on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs has
initiated parliamentary co-operation with:
- the World Water Council and the Turkish Parliament in
order to strengthen the parliamentary input “Parliaments for Water”
to the 5th World Water Forum in Istanbul (March 2009). The committee organised
in November 2008, the preparatory meeting which focused on implementation
of the right to water and sanitation in national legislation and
concrete application for those populations in need; planned management
of transboundary water basins and aquifers and promoting co-operation;
and decentralisation policies for the implementation of local water
and sanitation services. The issue of “right to water” was a particularly
difficult one to negotiate with the ministers who only agreed to
a “need for water”, but failed to qualify it as a “right”. The Assembly
therefore proposed to host an intermediary meeting in Strasbourg
in 2011 in order to advance these issues ahead of the 6th World
Water Forum, which will be held in Marseilles in 2012;
- the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM),
since its inception in 2006, and on a wide range of Mediterranean
issues where the two assemblies share a common interest such as environmental
protection and disaster management, migration flows, the role of
local and regional authorities, and the Israel-Palestine question.
13. In conclusion, environmental problems instead of being a source
of conflict could even be a means of solving the old political conflicts
of the region, if only they could be considered as instruments for
peace and co-operation. We need solidarity between the countries
of the region and a minimal level of human decency: access to clean
water, sanitation and energy sources. These are fundamental human
rights for every woman and every man living in the Mediterranean
region.
- Who can safeguard
this axiom?
- Who can persuade both Israelis and Palestinians that the
underground water of the blessed land of the three monotheistic
religions can follow no man-made dividing walls? And that human
rights, like water, are to be enjoyed by both nations.
- Who else, but the Council of Europe can monitor the honest
balance between the northern partners who provide technologies and
the lucky southern owners of the abundant renewable energy sources?
- Who could be a better agent than the Council of Europe
for introducing the concept of the environmental migrant within
the existing UN protection system for political or humanitarian
refugees?
- Who can finally upgrade environmental protection to the
level of democracy, of peace, of human rights protection?
14. We should stress that “the environment” is not only our physical
milieu. Especially when dealing with the Mediterranean region, we
necessarily have to look at all the dimensions of our frame of existence:
social, economic and cultural. Without them, how could one speak
of a “Mediterranean environment”?
15. Denis Badré’s report should be applauded for giving us a great
idea. The Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and
Regional Affairs is suggesting to continue this debate with its
report, which will put emphasis on the strategic control of the
environmental crisis in the Mediterranean region – in its multidimensional
sense. By undertaking a critical journey through an amazingly interesting
and dramatic area, during a critical time, and giving the Council
of Europe a crucial and universal role, while opening a challenging perspective
for the future work of the Parliamentary Assembly.
***
Reporting Committee: Political
Affairs Committee
Committees seized for opinion: Committee
on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs and Committee
on Economic Affairs and Development
Reference to committee: Doc. 11507, Reference
3420 of 14 April 2008
Opinion approved by the committee on 26 January 2010
Secretariat of the committee:
Mrs Agnès Nollinger, Mr Bogdan Torcătoriu and Mrs Dana Karanjac
