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Without anyone noticing and without any announcement, we missed our opportunity to anchor ourselves to Europe, failing to become a part of it. Yet, it was a beautiful prospect for many reasons: Europe is our primary commercial and cultural source, the main donor for our dilapidated administrations and NGOs, a model of modernism, democracy and civilization, and an inexhaustible potential source of investment.
The alternative would be to “turn to the East,” as Hassan Nasrallah advocates. This is understandable, as Sayyed has always been allergic to democracy, modernism and culture (of life). This does not prevent him from relying on the West for his jihadist and personal equipment. But in the end, we have gone nowhere – except from one bunker to another.
The first sign of the desired, yet missed anchorage with Europe is the Euromed Free Trade Agreement. We spent years negotiating it and obtained good advantages, thanks to the late Bassel Fleihan, who was the chief negotiator at the time.
Such agreements allow us, among other benefits, to freely export most of our agricultural and industrial products to the 27 countries of the European Union and its 450 million inhabitants. Lebanon also has a parallel agreement with the four countries of the European Free Trade Association (Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), and another with the United Kingdom.
All of this is contingent upon adhering to European standards and ensuring that these products are genuinely of local origin, meaning that at least 40% of the added value must be Lebanese or Lebanese-European.
Once the agreements were concluded, we made sure not to take advantage of them – or very little. Other partners in the Euromed area have done much better, such as Tunisia, Jordan or Egypt. Despite the agreement, our exports to Europe have never seen a substantial increase. And this is despite European technical assistance through the Elcim program for industrial upgrading, agricultural plans, or Libnor, the standardization program. European investments also did not materialize in significant amounts, due to our deplorable environment.
It is true that most of our producers, for their part, did not do what was necessary. It was more convenient for them to stay in their “comfort zone,” that of their usual Gulf clients, with connections woven over decades, considering that purchasing centers in Europe were harder to access. They were wrong. Those who bet on Europe were indeed rewarded.
But why is the European market more interesting? There are, of course, these free trade agreements, opening the way to hundreds of millions of consumers with significant purchasing power. It is true that we also have a Pan-Arab free trade agreement. But let’s face it: it doesn’t work very well. First, Arab countries do not always comply with the agreement’s stipulations. The reason can be anything, from politics or a minister’s mood, to occasional protectionist impulses.
Take Saudi Arabia, for example. Thanks to Hezbollah’s Captagon, its markets have closed to our producers. We look bad speaking ill of this country and the Gulf states in general, which have historically supported our economy through donations, credits, investments and thousands of tourists. Nevertheless, no European country would have imposed an embargo on all our products simply because one shipment contained drugs. Moreover, there are daily attempts to smuggle drugs into the European market from all countries. This does not stop Europe from trading with Colombia, Bolivia or Panama.
Finally, we are currently at risk of ruining the foundations of this Euromed agreement. A recent sign: the reinstallation of customs duties on all imported products (3%) and on products with a local equivalent (10%) according to the 2024 budget. These actions are not permitted by the agreements already concluded.
European authorities should normally be offended and take retaliatory measures. However, at least publicly and so far, this has not been the case, probably out of compassion for this country sinking into oblivion, unable to govern itself, unable to decipher three pages, and lacking a credible interlocutor to speak with. But a negative reaction could happen at any moment.
In the midst of all this, we can still find a comedic aspect to this story, thanks to our politicians who never miss an opportunity to showcase their ridiculous side. On this subject, not seeing where the problem lies, you will always find someone saying, “States are not charitable organizations; when they make agreements, they primarily think of their own interests.”
Then they strive to spread this gem everywhere, stating it fifteen times in the next day’s newspaper, proud to have discovered a new planet in our solar system.
