Attempt to revive the Union for the Mediterranean Thursday

A meeting is scheduled Thursday in Brussels to revive the Union for the Mediterranean (UPM), frozen since the war in Ghaza, according to a European source in Cairo.

•     Organized at the initiative of Javier Solana, the chief diplomat of the EU, this informal meeting will attempt to gather again around the table European partners, Arabs and Israeli.
  
      The French ambassador in charge of this file, Serge Telle said at a conference in Cairo this weekend, the desire of France to revive the UPM, which it co-holds the presidency at this meeting on 23 April.
  
      On several occasions, a date was set, and then postponed because of the political climate for a formal meeting of senior representatives of 43 member states of the UPM.
  
      If the meeting of 23 April is held normally, said the European source, the meeting could be held early in May, allowing the official melting of Euro-Mediterranean projects.
  
      Without proactive, UPM risked getting bogged down, but it is unclear which of the Arab countries agree to return to the table, said a European in Cairo.
  
      Always without a secretariat or funding, the UMP was a collateral victim of the Israeli offensive in the Ghaza Strip, from 27 December to 18 January, the Arab countries refused to sit down with Israel.
  
      Launched with great fanfare in Paris in July 2008 by the French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP was a union project out of the rut the process of Euro-Mediterranean dialogue called ‘Barcelona,’ born in 1995.
  
       France and Spain, who could succeed to co-chair in a year, expressed late in March in favour of a quick revival of the MFU
  
      Egypt, co-chair on the south side of the Mediterranean, coordinates with many difficulties, the Arab members of the UPM.
  
      
  Ennaharonline/ M. O.