A good excuse for a party.

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What do British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Arab League secretary general Amr Mousa and Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have in common?

Don't wait for a punchline, the three men have nothing in common, except perhaps the talent of playing songs of self-praise louder than noisy alarms warning of dangerous icebergs ahead. Or at least that's how it looked at the Paris summit--sponsored by President Nicholas Sarkozy last month--with the aim of creating a Union among Mediterranean nations (UPM).

Barely 10 days into his nation's presidency of the European Union (EU), the French leader ruffled some feathers by launching the summit, with great pomp and ceremony. It was attended by 43 heads of states and governments, many of whom appeared wary of the French president's plans, wondering perhaps whether the new venture would threaten their stature or undermine their regional ambitions and global polices.

The German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the original UPM format that excluded EU member countries not overlooking the Mediterranean. Becoming suspicious of the French hijacking the foreign policy of an EU in which her homeland has invested heavily for decades, the German leader, in Thatcher mode, handbagged the French leader into including all EU member countries. Once Sarkozy conformed to her disciplinary firm hand, Frau Merkel bestowed her blessings, praising his move as "a very, very good start for a new phase in the cooperation between Europe and the South".

It was not good news for Prime Minister Brown. The French and Germans reviving their alliance in setting a precedent of an EU as one' Mediterranean political entity was destined to arouse the suspicion of Britain, where public opinion is staunchly anti a European superstate. UK commentators and media pundits united in seeing the event as a modern Napoleonic plot to encircle what is left of the Empire's sphere of influence in the southern and eastern Mediterranean; a headache a prime minister under siege--by his own domestic policy--can do without.

Predictably, the Brits deployed a subtle diplomacy keeping a silent watch. The job of rubbishing the idea and casting doubt on the legitimacy of Sarkozy's brainchild was left to commentators like this correspondent.

Although attending the conference, Dr Amr Mousa was unimpressed by the French leader's attempt to further undermine his Arab League. Dr Mousa's displeasure echoed that voiced by some on the eve of the establishment of the Gulf Cooperation Council in 1980, who saw the six-member grouping as biting off the richest slice of the League's domain.

However, few would dispute the view that the Arab League's over-ambitious agenda to head up a mythical one Arab nation from the Atlas Mountains to the rocks of Oman has kept the organisation permanently resident in the realms of rhetoric.

Only Colonel Gaddafi put his money where his mouth was. The colonel called the UPM another attempt to reintroduce 'European colonialism' to his imaginary sphere of influence.

In addition to the traditional glitches wherever Arabs and Jews are pushed under the same roof, there were a few guests keen to explore opportunities presented by French ideas for peace in the region.

Institutional issues like efforts to establish the UPM as a functional venture had to be put on the back-burner. While choosing a location for the general secretariat will be one of the major headaches for some time. Morocco, Tunisia, Malta and Spain were all earmarked as candidates to host the organisation's headquarters, but the issue remains unresolved according to Paris-based diplomats, with UPM foreign ministers scheduled to have a poke at the issue again when they meet in November. A European city might be the most sensible choice. How else to orchestrate hosting Israeli and Arab leaders still on 'no speaking terms' without major diplomatic embarrassments?

Or perhaps, to set a good example of European democracy, transparency and rule of law, the honour should be given to a politically underdeveloped southern neighbour?

A combination of a few chips on the old colonial shoulders and the desire for political correctness is likely to generate a fatwa placing the HQ somewhere on the southern shores of the pond. Malta could be a good compromise, but Muslim Turkey might even look better, unless such a move was interpreted as a way to keep the Turks off the EU main body they are so keen to become a part of. Any choice will undoubtedly ensure a few more fistfuls of sand in the gears.

The question of how to raise funds for regional projects designed to give a concrete content to the UPM, including in domains such as environment, transport and civil protection also remain unresolved.

European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso felt that the momentum created by the UPM would help identify 'additional resources'. There is little evidence, however, that the launch of the proposed cooperation projects was sufficiently focused to bridge the huge development gap in the region; especially the average annual income per capita of $26,000 in the north, compared to a paltry $7,000 in the south.

"The population of southern Mediterranean countries will increase by 100m people by 2030," crowed Egypt's long serving President Hosni Mubarak, who chaired the summit jointly with his French counterpart. Such a prospect represents a considerable challenge for a Europe that is already facing strong migratory pressures from the south.

Carrying his iced water bucket of realism, Sweden's chief diplomat Carl Bildt, told journalists that while he welcomed "a more ambitious approach" to the Euro-Mediterranean cooperation, he felt obliged to warn that the launch of the UPM was "not going to change the world" overnight.

The UPM is likely to face the same pitfalls which bedeviled the Barcelona Process, launched in 1995 as part of wider efforts to revive the EU's Mediterranean policy, especially the antagonism and deep-seated tension between Israeli and some of her neighbours.

In Paris a quarrel developed between the Israelis and their Palestinian peace partners on the use of the expression 'nation state' to describe Israel. Nothing new to an EU still facing the same difficulties of working with a southern shore undermined by internal rivalries and controlled by leaders more concerned with the survival of their regimes.

One of the highlights of the gathering was cameras catching president Mubarak warmly embracing Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, while turning his back, purposely it seemed, on the Syrian president Bashar Al Assad. To some observers, the gesture seemed to confirm the months-old whisper concerning the Egyptian leader's exasperation with the Syrian president. However, the French invitation provided a golden opportunity to help Assad break out of the isolation imposed by an international community that suspected his hand in the assassination of Lebanon's nationalist prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri in 2005.

Whether by design or accident, the failure of both French and Syrian officials to carefully choreograph Assad's movements with seating plans provided television camera crews with footage reminiscent of some sort of wacky reality television show.

For Israel's Ehud Olmert, the French vacation came as a brief respite from growing unpopularity at home, and a police investigation into a corruption scandal. TV cameras followed the Israeli leader positioning himself, several times, in his Syrian neighbour's line of sight or even in his path, only for Assad to turn away quickly and, at one point, bury his head fast into his Blackberry thumbing its keyboard nervously to the background of television journalists conducting their football match like live commentary. Olmert, in response, would cheekily turn to the cameras lifting his arms and shrugging his shoulders.