WE are all of us informed by our backgrounds and influenced by our upbringing. Of no-one is this more true than Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France. Erstwhile first generation immigrant, only one quarter French, even this salient factor about him is questioned. According to some he was born

in Hungary and admitted such in a previous visit. His convoluted ancestral history contributes to an overall psyche which is at the same time predisposed to explore ideas of a greater European Union and cautious about the inclusion of certain elements which may not be conducive to its cohesion.

His recent visit to Hungary, the homeland of his father, and previous visits he has made there tell us something of the ambivalent way he approaches his own background, and of his early revelations of policy. Indeed, an early critique of these two considerations may very well be instructive as events unfold. Sarkozy's own Hungarian roots go way back to the sixteenth century, his family being enobled as minor aristocracy by the Emperor Ferdinand II in 1628.

Sarkozy admires the Hungarian people, whatever his feelings towards his father and his father's language: 'I belong to a generation that grew up in the tradition of the events of Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968, and when I was a student, I always greatly valued the courage of the Hungarian people, who never gave up'. It was appropriate therefore that it has been in Hungary, during his first visit to Eastern Europe, that the President chose to expand on his ideas for a Mediterranean Union and its further consequences, a plan he had revealed even before becoming President. It is interesting to note in what has been described as his 'truly divisive personality' more than a trace element of his ancestry, being defined also as the 'Half-Hungarian prince of the Gaullists', and now indeed a Prince in name, as the President of the French Republic is also, ex-officio, Co-Prince of the Principality of Andorra, a title dating back to the time of Henri IV, King of Navarre and King of France. It was a title not lost on the status-conscious de Gaulle.

Many similarities have been drawn between Sarkozy and Napoleon: his size, his dynamism and ambition, his wives and children, his foreign ancestry, his childhood and youth, his quest for a father figure, but of course he remains his own man. While in Hungary in September, Sarkozy stated 'Europe cannot remain immobile, Europe has to take a step forward. I'd like the French Presidency (of the EU, in the second half of 2008) to be useful to Europe--we need to act together and we need to push Europe to act together'.

Sarkozy is perhaps more than aware that all previous attempts at European Union have stalled on the questions of Russia and Turkey, going right back to the Grand Dessin of the Duc de Sully in the reign of Henri IV, whether these countries are called Russia and Turkey or Muscovy and the Sublime Porte. They present problems which seem intractable, although no problem is unsolvable if both the parties are disposed to a solution. Sarkozy addressed the question in Hungary of the EU-backed Nabucco pipeline, aimed at reducing dependency on Russian gas. A conference on this very question was taking place in Budapest on the day Sarkozy was there, and he said that France backed this project.

The call for the Mediterranean Union tackles both the question of Turkish membership, and addresses the question of a world political and economic balance, taking in the vital questions of energy and that of human resources, well described as the 'coal and steel' of the Mediterranean Union proposals, just as the actual coal and steel were the foundation of the Treaty of Paris in 1951. It is the sharing of resources for the benefit of all which defined that Treaty. Human resources and energy are the resources which need to be shared by the sixteen states which ring the littoral of the Mediterranean. The logic is that if this is done, and if proposals can be reinforced, then economic wellbeing will defuse political extremism. Whether it can be proved conclusively or not, this is the 50-year legacy of the European Community and Union. A sharing of resources and economic wellbeing has made any steps towards another war quite unthinkable among the states of the European Union.

But hasn't this question been broached already? In November 1995 the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, referred to as the Barcelona Process, aimed to create a Mediterranean Free Trade Zone by 2010. Even before this, a French initiative in 1990 created a Mediterranean Forum. This was also called the 5+5 West Mediterranean Forum, as the members consisted of 5 European Union members (France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Malta, which was then a candidate state) and 5 North African states, (namely Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia). This forum met occasionally, but lacked significant progress.

The Barcelona Process itself now has 37 members, the 27 members of the EU plus 9 other Mediterranean states including Turkey, and the West Bank and Gaza strip areas, in other words the Palestinian Authority. Libya for so long a pariah state, has had Observer status since 1999. The Barcelona Process has three main objectives, or chapters: these are, one, a political and security chapter, two, an economic and financial chapter, and three, a social, cultural and human chapter. Failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian question, certainly not original, seemed to put the Process on hold, and it is arguable that Sarkozy wishes to reinvigorate it, and issue Barcelona Stage II, but his ideas for a Mediterranean Union go far beyond that. Firstly, he envisages some kind of division of the Euro-Mediterranean entity or state, before it becomes too big and implodes, as the Roman Empire did. With this in mind, the EU could become a Northern part, an Eastern part, and a Southern part. This is not new in historical experience. Germany is the natural leader of the Eastern part, and indeed the word Ostpolitik, redolent of the divided Germany of Cold War days, became current again during the recent German presidency. France would be the natural leader in the South, but working in close partnership with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Malta.

So the scene was set when on May 10, 2007, Sarkozy, the President-elect, made his victory speech. 'I want to issue a call to all the people of the Mediterranean to tell them it is in the Mediterranean that everything is going to be played out, that we have to overcome all kinds of hatred to pave the way for a great dream of peace and a great dream of civilisation'. The speech is redolent of a Kennedy-esque rhetoric, and it might be, it just might be, one of the great rallying calls of the twenty-first century. It is significant that the Israeli Vice Premier, Shimon Peres, who received the speech warmly, commented: 'His pronouncement about a Middle East pact similar to the European Union is very interesting. All friends of France should wish him well in his position'. Another senior Israeli diplomat commented: 'My feeling is that there is every reason to believe that Israel would be interested in this because it gives us another opportunity to have a dialogue with countries that we sometimes have difficulties holding a dialogue with'. The Barcelona Initiative is currently the only forum where Israel and Arab States sit down together. It is a fortunate precedent on which to build.

Other states received the proposals warmly too. In Spain, Juan Prat, ambassador at large for Mediterranean affairs, praised the proposal as a way to deal more effectively with new risks like immigration, terrorism and climate change. 'We are ready to work with him on this because we need to enhance the European-Mediterranean partnership' he said. Portuguese and Egyptian spokespersons also received the proposals warmly. So what is Sarkozy proposing at the moment which might advance Barcelona? All the countries ringing the Mediterranean are included in the plan, viz. Portugal, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, sixteen in all. He wants them to form a Council and hold regular summit meetings under a rotating presidency. He wants regional co-operation in the fields of energy, security, counter-terrorism and immigration, and to create a Mediterranean Bank. Modelled on the European Investment Bank in Luxembourg, a Mediterranean Bank would help develop the economies on the eastern and southern edges of the region. He has offered French expertise on nuclear energy in return for access to North Africa's gas reserves. 'The time has come to build together a Mediterranean Union that will be the bridge between Europe and Africa', Sarkozy said in his victory speech when he won office. In a previous campaign speech he had said: 'The Mediterranean is a key to our influence in the world. It's also a key for Islam that is torn between modernity and fundamentalism'.

Here again, it is necessary to return to Turkey. What was the Turkish reaction to Sarkozy's plan? 'This cannot be an alternative to Turkey's wish to join the EU', Egeman Bagis, the chief foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister of Turkey, said. 'Every country that started membership negotiations with the EU has completed them', he continued, and 'If Turkey becomes the only exception, it would send a very bad message to the world's 1.5 billion Muslims': this is exactly what Sarkozy wants to contain and avoid. Turkey is willing however to consider the Mediterranean Union as a prelude, not an alternative, to membership, and why cannot the two (membership of both) be possible, as is the case with Turkey's membership of the Black Sea Union, which could also well serve as a template.

The situation could perhaps be summed up in what has been done already, what is being done, and what could be done, to further the progress of this Grand Design. The idea was not Sarkozy's alone. It may have come originally from an intuitive remark, or from the long-term plans of Romano Prodi, for example. The Barcelona Process led in 2005 to the dividing of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) into branches, with the Southern branch being grafted on to the Barcelona Process.

More significant perhaps has been the work of the Economic Cooperation Council (ECC) which on 6 May 2007, just four days before the victory speech of Sarkozy, began a two-week mission throughout North Africa, talking to no less than 134 economic and financial figures and experts. The ECC has been working since 2003 for integration and growth in the Mediterranean rim. The Barcelona Process itself has not been stagnant. Among its credentials now are the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the Facility for Euro-Mediterranean Investment and Partnership, the MEDA programme, which is the financial instrument for Euro-Mediterranean partnership, and the Anna Lindh Foundation for cultural exchanges.

Spain, meanwhile, while warmly receiving Sarkozy's plan, has floated its own proposal, a real geo-political space, with institutions along the lines of those in the EU. French diplomats are working to formulate a more concrete proposal. This may also be the centrepiece of the French Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2008. In a more regional sense, a parliamentary mission in France has been launched, which makes use of those very experts frequently referred to by Sarkozy. 'A committee of experts', in this case ten deputies from the French assembly, will publish their report on what they have concluded concerning the plan, and will report to the President. The Institute de la Mediterranee would be the advanced base camp of the Mediterranean-Union project. The title of the parliamentary mission is 'How to build the Mediterranean Union'.

What else has been achieved so far? Although it has its controversial side, Libya has been brought in from the cold. A French arms deal has been concluded, following the release of Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor after the intercession of Cecilia Sarkozy, the then wife of the President, an action without precedent in French republican history. In October 2007 Sarkozy made a visit to Bulgaria, and was rewarded with the highest decoration that country has to bestow. Bulgaria became a member of the European Union on 1 January 2007.

Sarkozy has now appointed a pro-Turkish Prime Minister in France, perhaps heralding a change or softening in his stance on Turkish membership of the EU, which he has been against until recently.

This brings the situation to the question of what may be done. The Barcelona Process will be re-shaped. The Southern and Eastern branches will be separated. Each should be given its own identity and operational specificity. There should be a new variety of the Troika, the three-headed spear of Foreign Policy. Co-operation should be capable of being reinforced. French and Italian influence in the region would be given a new lease of life, but without the negative aspects of former times. Plans for the redistribution of wealth must not be confined to an elite in countries of the region, but must be created on a much wider basis.

If Mauretania is included (which does not have a Mediterranean coastline) the inclusion of Jordan and Syria should also be considered. The 'Levant' after all, with which the EU has trade protocols, does not exclude them. Then there is also the question of the coastal states of the Mediterranean. Not all of them are included, for example the coastal states of the former Yugoslavia, plus Albania. All of this would involve re-thinking what it means to be part of Europe, and the title Euro-Mediterranean Union should be considered. Judge Borg Barthet, the Maltese judge of the European Court of Justice, said in a keynote speech in March in London that the European Union was now bigger than the Roman Empire had been, and must consider its future and its extent and borders in the optimum way for the twenty-first century. So, at present the plan would be for the Mediterranean Union to have a Council of Heads of State or Government, Ministerial Councils, a Permanent Commission to act as a Secretariat, a reinforced Parliamentary Assembly and its own Bank, modelled on the European Investment Bank.

It is significant that the plan has been well received also by the intelligentsia. The French historian and writer Alexander Adler has hailed the Mediterranean Union as a potential high of French diplomacy. Writing in Le Figaro he predicts it will transform the EU's Barcelona Process, promote co-operation among Mahgreb countries, and end long rivalries. While Dominic Strauss Kahn, politician and once himself French presidential candidate in an article entitled 'What borders for Europe?' says: 'That is why, personally, I have no doubt at all about the European future of Turkey. And, at a later stage, beyond Turkey, we will have to think about how to make it possible for countries from the ex-Soviet Union and countries from the Mediterranean basis, such as those in the Mahgreb, to join our political arena'. Therefore there remains a possibility, as Neweuropeans Magazine has pointed out, that the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership might end up being the opportunity for Southern Mediterranean states to join the European Union, or for the European Union to become some sort of Euro-Mediterranean Union.

Whatever the outcome, there is no doubting the inbuilt dynamic of the European Union itself nor of the energy and dynamism of its latest project.

Michael L. Nash is a lecturer at Glion Institute of Higher Education, Bulle, Switzerland.