The Barcelona Process and its relevance to the current immigration crisis in the EU

The single Europe entered into cooperation with its Mediterranean neighbours in the end of the 1960s with the development purposes. In 1972, it proceeded to the Global Mediterranean policy, which was updated in 1990. In 1995, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, or the Barcelona Process, was launched to enable cooperation between 15 EU members and 12 Mediterranean states. It was the first attempt to cooperate simultaneously in the spheres of politics and security, trade and economy, social and cultural affairs. Although migration was not at first among the Barcelona Process priorities, this mechanism regulated it in an indirect way. The Process was supposed to reduce emigration from the Mediterranean countries through their development, which had to create a wide range of opportunities for their population. The Process proceeded slowly with its main results being the establishment of the dialogue between partners and the organization of conferences and seminars. Therefore, the EU made the Mediterranean region one of its foreign policy priorities since 2000. Moreover, to urge its Mediterranean neighbours to carry out necessary political and economic reforms, the EU started to make its development aid conditional upon their progress and the will to cooperate in migration management. The EU also updated its Mediterranean strategy in 2004 and adopted the global approach to migration in 2005. In 2005, migration management was announced the forth priority of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. However, within 10 years the Partnership did not achieve the expected results, which was caused by several reasons. The failure of the Barcelona Process was due to the unsolved Middle East conflict which separated the participants. The state machine inefficiency in most Mediterranean countries impeded the reforms implementation. In addition, the unsuccessful attempt to create the free-trade area in the Mediterranean region aggravated the gap in economic development between the northern and southern shores of the Mediterranean, which, in turn, resulted in rising migration from Northern Africa and the Middle East into Europe. In the sphere of migration, the first Euro-Med Migration programme was launched in 2004 to manage mixed migration flows in the Mediterranean region. It resulted in the organization of 40 staff trainings and 10 study visits, and the conduction of the research in female migration in the Mediterranean which were both completed within 4 years. The activity of the Barcelona Progress itself, however, was gradually falling. To maintain the opportunity to cooperate with its Mediterranean neighbours, the EU offered them to update the format of cooperation. Therefore, the Union for the Mediterranean was established in 2008. Although migration in the region was growing, migration management was not indicated among its priorities. However, the first Euro-Med programme was succeeded by the second and the third ones which also aimed at the migration service staff training and study visits organization. Despite the creation of the Union for the Mediterranean, the same obstacles the Barcelona Process faced earlier impeded it. The development gap between the two shores of the Mediterranean was growing as well as the number of people in Northern Africa and the Middle East demanding their fundamental rights to be observed. The failure of the Barcelona Process turned out to be one of the causes of the Arab Spring which shook the countries of Northern Africa and the Middle East in 2011. These events also showed the failure of the EU migration policy in the region since illegal migration is still growing. Today it is essential for the European Union to analyse the shortcomings of the Barcelona Process and reform its policy towards the Mediterranean region.

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