Daily Star Political News: Mediterranean union hits snare of Mideast conflict

EU pushes Lebanese to work with Israelis By Annika Folkeson Special to The Daily Star Saturday, August 09, 2008 Editor's note: This story is the second of a two-part series looking into French President Nicolas Sarkozy's Union for the Mediterranean initiative and its possible ramifications for Lebanon. BEIRUT: When French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Union for the Mediterranean (MU) in Paris on July 13, Lebanese responses ranged from the hopeful to the skeptical. Like the European-Mediterranean partnership (EuroMed) upon which the MU is founded, the proposed union's implementation may well stumble over the region's intractable political conflicts, and the paternalism embedded in the EU's efforts to sidestep those conflicts when building the MU. European diplomatic sources see the MU treaty to be a positive thing for... [read full story]