When President George W. Bush launched his "greater Middle East initiative" for Arab democracy a couple of years ago, many Europeans complained he was ignoring what the European Union had achieved over the past 10 years with its neighbours around the southern and eastern rim of the Mediterranean. But, as the EU takes stock at a 35-nation summit today of this decade-long partnership, one has to ask, what achievement?

For the so-called Barcelona process has shown the limits of the soft (political) power that Europe likes to vaunt and contrast with US hard (military) power. The EU gives €1bn a year in aid, and more in loans, to its Mediterranean partners, but has stimulated little political reform in return.