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| The Doha Forum reviews the prospects of EU-analogue in the Arab world |  | | Prime-Tass (Russian) - Global Policy Forum 2011 (English) - 5/10/2011 | | The idea of establishing an analogue of the European Union to solve political, economic and social problems concentrated in the Arab region has become one of the topics of the 11th Doha Forum on Democracy, Development and Free Trade launched on May 9 in the capital of Qatar.
The forum has traditionally gathered high-ranking politicians, powerful representatives of business communities and politologists from all over the word so that they could discuss the situation at the Middle East which has become especially strained over the last several months.
“Ongoing Arab revolutions have proved, that young generation is hardly committed to the ideas of the society of consumers, but strives for a real freedom, which contradicts neither Arab traditions, no Islam,” said at the meeting.
According to Prime Minister of Iraqi Kurdistan Barham Salih, there is still a wide gap between the Arab countries, but, at the same time, there share the same culture, religion and common values. “Therefore, it’s time to think about absolutely new frameworks of collective cooperation in the region similar to those working in Europe,” he added.
However, the idea of establishing the Arab Alliance raises great doubts among the EU representatives. “Europe passed a long and hard way to unity, though European countries had always been closer to each other, than Arab countries in nowadays,” Swedish foreign minister Karl Bildt said. “Differences in political institutions and levels of social-economic development of the Arab countries do not allow us discussing this idea and its implementation in the nearest future,” he confirmed.
His Portuguese counterpart Louis Amadu sounded more positive, however. “If you do not believe in your neighbors, how we can talk about stability in the region in general,” he noted. According to Amadu, Europe should, on the contrary, take part in working out a “general agenda” together with the Arab countries, to help the region in preventing the danger of a new cultural clash. |
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