When you think of Club Med, you think of warm clear turquoise waters rippling in a summer’s breeze that cools the intensity of a hot sun in a cloudless azure sky. You’re reminded of Ouzo, Rosé or Sangria at a beachside café, as your toes toss the white sand - and your taste buds salivate at the prospect of bouillabaisse, suckling pig or a cool but piquant Greek salad.

Well you can put your passport away, for Club Med is about to take on a completely new meaning, and if you have shares in a travel company you may want to sell them. As part of the French Presidency of the European Union the French head of State, Nicholas Sarkozy, has reinvigorated the EU’s ambition to establish closer links with the Mediterranean neighbour’s of the North African coast and what we used to accurately call the Levant.

The original European Union and Mediterranean partnership was launched at Barcelona in 1995 with the intention of improving diplomatic ties over issues such as trade, immigration and trafficking with countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Turkey. This became known as The Barcelona Process. Despite all the well-wishing and self congratulatory clichés and platitudes the initiative soon came to nought, caught out, as so many European institutions are, in their own internal contradictions and power-bargaining (as I shall explain later).

The EU’s Barcelona Process had all but disappeared from the geo-political map until Sarkozy saw an opportunity to make the running. Some would say he sensed the chance for French pomp and glory – others allege to try and give Turkey a sop for a pending French block on it’s EU membership, or both – whatever the motive the relaunch of the Barcelona Process in Paris came about this month with all the French gusto one might expect. It is now called the Union for the Mediterranean.

Initially the French wanted to form an economic union in the Med with only those EU members that actually had a Mediterranean coastline (and no, this did not include Gibraltar and therefore Britain!). Germany soon put paid to that arguing, not unreasonably, that as the monies of others such as Germany and the UK would finance it then every EU member should have a seat at the table. Sarkozy caved in and so the twenty-three became – a staggering forty-seven! Finland, Denmark and Estonia thus became members of what was by now rather mischievously being dubbed the EU’s Club Med.

The EU’s Club Med will start up with a secretariat, jointly provided by the French and Egyptians (who else?) and some money to start up government inspired initiatives on solar energy, anti-terrorism and cultural exchanges (MEPs take note).

It easy to knock such initiatives but there are advantages to be had.

The economic importance of the Mediterranean should not be underestimated, providing as it does, significant resources as a source of labour, as a staging post for world trade, a provider of specialist goods and produce, as a destination for Sun-starved Northern Europeans and a market for investment in its own economies.

Economic growth in the region runs currently at an average of 4.4% - not Chinese standards but better than what it was and it’s accelerating as Europe’s slows down.

Renault and Nissan are together planning a new car factory in Morocco while there is a new container port in Tangiers that will outgrow Long Beach California. As usual private sector inward investment is the key, creating real jobs and spreading wealth with the French investing in Egyptian cement, the Indians in IT and pharmaceuticals, the Americans in aerospace parts and the Brazilians in fertiliser.

One absurdity is that the southern shoreline countries are very good at trade with the north – but very poor at trading with each other – encouraging open borders and greater economic activity between the southern partners can only be for the good - as it was for continental Europe.

Sure, the non-EU countries involved all have their democratic traumas looming just over the horizon to confront and deal with – but that is no reason for doing nothing, indeed our own self-interest suggests we should be pointing to free markets as the way to prosperity and peace. This, though, is where the EU faces it’s own hurdle – for it is not about free markets – it is about planned and regulated markets.

The very agricultural produce that can be reaped in North Africa and desperate economies such as Palestine are the very fruits of enterprise that French farmers want stopped, or at least to face tariffs that would price them out of the housewife’s basket (and environmentalists would halt them due to their air miles!). The manufactured goods could all face the same barriers too. It is this inner myopic approach that of course encourages the illegal immigration that Europe fails to halt – and then wants tougher controls to prevent.

One also has to ask, why should it stop at the Med, why not Britain’s former colonies and Dominions, why not the British Commonwealth or indeed why not the whole world under World Trade. Or is that just asking too much because EU autocrats would lose control and importance?

If the EU is to work towards globalisation and recognise that free trade is the solution to so many of our social and economic problems then it should be working for greater open access. If Club Med CAN begin to help deliver this where the Barcelona Process failed then it shall have been worth doing.