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The Barcelona Conference was initiated in 1995 by Javier Solana during his dual term as Spanish Foreign Minister as well as president of the European Union.
The conference is sometimes referred to by European sources as "Common Strategy on the Mediterranean Region." Participants were 15 EU countries, and 12 Middle East and North African countries. The United States reportedly requested participant status, but was only granted observer status.
The Barcelona Process (also known as the Barcelona Treaty or the Barcelona Declaration), developed by the Conference over its successive annual meetings, is a set of goals designed to lead to a free trade zone in the Middle East by 2010. Its inital agenda was the following:
The conference was opened in Barcelona on November 27, 1995, approximately 3 weeks after Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin was assassinated. It was also only one week after a 7.2 mw earthquake struck the Gulf of Aqaba region, a fact ironically noted by the covering press calling it "an expected political earthquake coming in the wake" of a previous quake in Eilat, Israel.
Israel was represented at the Barcelona Conference by Ehud Barak, who soon thereafter became Israel's Prime Minister. Both Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat had high praises for Solana's coordination of the Barcelona Process. Both described the events of the Conference with high regard.
Solana opened the initial 1995 conference with a speech to the participant nations, announcing that they were brought together to straighten out the "clash of civilizations" and misunderstandings between them, many of which date back to the First Crusade of November 27, 1095. Solana said it "was auspicious" that they had convened on the 900th anniversary of that date. At the conclusion of the first conference, at which the Barcelona Treaty was drawn up among the 27 country coalition, Javier Solana was credited with the remarkable diplomatic accomplishment. Israel's Ehud Barak was quoted by covering press as saying they had beaten their swords into ploughshares. Barak also said that at long last Israel had joined the "European Club".
Libya was not present at the 1995 Barcelona Conference. Shortly before that process began, Muammar al-Qaddafi, Prime Minister of Libya, reportedly screamed at other Arab leaders: "What's the matter with you idiots? Can't you see this is a blatant European attempt to gain hegemony over our region?!"
However, in 2000, both Qaddafi and his country joined the Conference and acknowledged the principles laid out in the Barcelona Process. It was reported that Gaddafi was panicked at the prospect of being left out of "the European Club."
Since the opening of the first conference, various "Treaties of Association" between the European Union and Middle East countries have been incorporated as part and parcel of the process, including but not limited to the Treaty of Association between the European Union and Israel, signed by Javier Solana and Shimon Peres on November 20, 1995 and finally ratified on June 1, 2000. Those treaties, including the EU-Israel one, were reconfirmed at the 9th conference in June 2004. When Ariel Sharon said he would exclude the EU from the peacemaking process in July, 2004, Solana responded that "like it or not, the EU is on board."
There have been some charges by Jewish anti-terrorist watchdog groups that some Palestinian terror against Israeli targets may have been funded by hybrid governmental-private collaborations stemming from Barcelona.
In March, 2004 the stakes on the Barcelona Process distinctly rose as the European Union, speaking in Washington, D.C. through its then troika, Javier Solana, Chris Patten, and the Irish presidency of the EU that the United States defer to them on the "Greater Middle East Neighborhood" or "Broad Middle East Initiative" (BMI), in exchange for EU support for the USA's deepening Iraq extrication issues. It was agreed that the announcement of this support would be made to three major conferences in June, 2004: The G-8 Summit; the EU-USA summit; and the NATO summit. The announcements were made and statements issued by all three. The day after the NATO summit ended, June 29, 2004, the Council of the European Union voted to increase Javier Solana's powers and remit -- there would no longer be a troika speaking for the EU -- from thenceforth, it would be Javier Solana who would assume the prospective powers of the powerful new European Foreign Minister post, even in advance of the new EU's constitution ratification. Presumably this was done to put the EU on equal bargaining terms with the USA for which the EU expressed growing concerns about its hegemony.
The Barcelona conference is now 9 years old. Javier Solana announced as of July 2004 that by its tenth birthday in November 2005, he belived true Middle East peace might be achieved.
At the initial meeting in 1995, the following member nations were present and agreed to the Barcelona Declaration:
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