Building the Mosaic of Mediterranean Integration

Drawing on his personal experience as Malta's foreign minister from 2004 to 2008, the author argues that the process of Mediterranean integration should be viewed as building a mosaic block by block, with each tile being important to the whole. The original idea for a Union of the Mediterranean is depicted as being superior to its successor, the Union for the Mediterranean The aim should have been to establish a council of the Mediterranean along the lines of the Council of the Baltic States. The political architecture of the Mediterranean is composed of a variable geometry and concentric circles, in which the Olive Group is a “soft” landing place for informal dialogue among the group members and other non-EU states on the Mediterranean littoral.