In 1995, the EU started the Euromediterranean Partnership, or the "Barcelona Process", to integrate the economies of Europe, the Maghreb and the Mashriq, which historically are more linked culturally and historically than they have become.

In 2004, four countries, Jordan, Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt, signed the Agadir Agreement, creating a Free Trade area. This sparked a great discussion in the Arab League and the very next year, in 2005 the member states of the Council of Arab Economic Unity signed the Great Arab Free Trade Area (GAFTA), including the Agadir signatories as well. Most AL states are signatories of GAFTA, though Somalia, Djibouti, the Comoros Islands and Mauritania remain candidates until they can meet the requirements for membership.



Following the Euromediterranean Summit of 2005, The Union for the Mediterranean was created on 13 July 2008. It initially sought to push forward a Mediterranean economic bloc including all Mediterranean Countries, but over protests that EU funds would be used in a project that EU countries had no say over, and also Turkish protests that this was a 'replacement' for EU membership for Turkey, the entire EU was included as well as ensuring that Turkey could still join the EU.

The UftM includes all GAFTA signatories bordering the med, plus Israel and Turkey and a number of Balkan candidate nations for EU membership. Funnily enough Mauritania, which is only a candidate for GAFSA is a full member of UftM, while Libya which is a full GAFSA member is only an observer in UftM.



What this means is that the EU and the AL have overlapping economic and political blocs, the AL and EU is bridged by the UftM, creating a single economic and trade region.

one world government! When is the anti-christ coming?

I was hoping more for a United States of Eurasia

euraSIA!
SIA!
SIA!

countries trading with each other. This is just disgusting

What's wrong with world government?

Well I was making a semi-joke post based on the end of times prophecies.


But I do have some real world problems with it.


First of all the more local you get in your politics, the more responsive democracy is to you. Your vote counts more in your town hall, than in your county seat, than in your state legislature, than in your governor race, than in your presidents race, etc....


The more people ruled under a government, the less important each person is. Quite frankly if the 1 world government was a democracy, China and india would have all the power, and if they didn't want aid going to poor little America, it wouldn't.


I believe in localizing as much power as possible as it serves the needs of the people the best.

Cool beans. This area will probably be the place where the strongest currency to replace the dollar will emerge, if integration continues at this pace.

You can have sovereignty and local government as well as political and economic unification, and the success of the EU means that they're hardly browbeating people into joining, on the contrary everyone and their brother wants to join.

The Aleuro?

I was making a joke about one world GOVERNMENT, meaning it is the supreme government of the land, no more countries. You asked what was wrong with that.

He is already among us...

Nope, not suave enough the Anti-Christ will be suave and convincing enough to bring all the world to his feet. Don't forget over 40% of america didn't vote for him. Plus isn't he supposed to come from somewhere else?

Another plus, the Anti-Christ is poppy &#$@.

Obama's suave...suave enough to convince people to vote for him and place him as president.

Bring the world to his feet? Name one country that doesn't love everything Obama does. The man is worshiped in Europe!

Only the God-fearing 40%...

He is from somewhere else... duh

haha, also the faithful were to have been taken away before he comes anyways. I haven't noticed any mass vanishings.

He was sent back from the future by Skynet.

Because you are blind to the truth! THE END IS NIGH! REPENT! REPENT!!

Both of them vanished in 2007.

I suppose I should get back to the topic at hand...

It would be very difficult for any supranational organizations to reach the unity of a world government...at least for now....

Personally, I think the struggles of forming these unions grow exponentially as you add more people and more cultures. These conflicts will limit any actions democratically run organizations can push through, as you can see with the UN, where it is pretty hard to even pass a resolution condemning a country for war crimes.

The bigger concern, of course, is the affect this will have on the American economy, since it is possible that the US can always be "left out of the loop" as these organizations grow.

I support the world uniting more so this is good

Nothing so long as my country isn't part of it. I like my nation's constitution just the way it is. Unless and until someone shows me one I like more, I'll continue fighting anything that weakens my nation's constitution.



Actually, Asia is the world's rising star. They'll likely be the ones to decide that question. However, it's important to remember that the Euro has been freefalling right along with the Dollar against hard currency assets like precious metals. It has shown no greater stability than the Dollar. It's also important to note that a number of EU nations are in serious fiscal trouble. Several have had their sovereign debt rating dropped multiple times while others have had their sovereign debt rating openly threatened. The IMF has even provided some long-term warnings to Britain on its fiscal situation regarding the NHS.

In other words, it's not like much of Europe is in any better shape than the US.

These are trade arrangements, the thread's title is exaggerating the scale of integration massively.

NAFTA will destroy your UftM using it's powers of... TRADING RESOURCES!!1!1!1oneoneone

I don't like the idea of one government but very close trade relations between the EU and Arab nations seem like good ideas to me. Brings more wealth to all nations in question and hopefully creates more understanding of one another.

It never will happen, Russia will never join a bloc with Europe, as they consider themselves THE Eurasia (lol) and will probably go for one with Central Asia, Mongolia, and perhaps Iran in it.




More like the Denarius. This is practically The Roman Empire, anyway, except with the addition of Scandinavia, Poland, and the Arabian peninsula.

Europeans and Arabs generally all have their roots in Greek, Phoenician and Roman culture, and hopefully this trading bloc will help people to actually acknowledge the shared cultural heritage.

There is no such thing as a NWO, Anti-Christ, or a definate Third World War. If there is, than that would suck.

Wrong, they're going to join with the rest of Asia and then the ice age is gonna come and they're gonna fight the EU and...

good to know, thanks for your expert opinion

Seen any posts from me recently?

um..except this one....

dammit i never get this right

The Union for the Mediterranean is an interesting step as it is definitively a sub-organization of the European Union, and many members of the Union for the Mediterranean are pushing for much stronger integration and bigger projects, such as Morocco, Israel, Tunisia and obviously Turkey.

I think in terms of the EU, much more interesting developments are occuring in North Africa than in Eastern Europe.

The Union for the Mediterranean isn't the only link into GAFSA as well, most of the GAFSA members not in the Union for the Mediterranean are in the Gulf Cooperation Council, which the EU has strong ties to already and has been hashing out a closer agreement with since 2007.