{"id":1790,"date":"2008-07-14T19:24:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-14T19:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jcm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1790"},"modified":"2008-07-14T19:34:15","modified_gmt":"2008-07-14T19:34:15","slug":"the-union-for-the-mediterranean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2008\/07\/the-union-for-the-mediterranean\/","title":{"rendered":"The Union for the Mediterranean"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/1\/hi\/world\/europe\/7504214.stm\">Launched officially today<\/a>, and I&#8217;ve yet to work out what it&#8217;s all for (bar an ego trip for Sarkozy and a jolly for various heads of state, that is).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/blogs\/thereporters\/markmardell\/2008\/07\/many_of_the_44_leaders.html\">Mark Mardell<\/a> has the handiest overview I&#8217;ve found so far &#8211; and also doesn&#8217;t seem to know quite what to make of it. Wikipedia is, as ever, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mediterranean_Union\">useful if taken with a pinch of salt<\/a> &#8211; largely thanks to the overview of the controversies and squabbles that have marred its birth.<\/p>\n<p>One thing that is fun, however, is to compare the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:Union_for_the_Med.png\">map of this new international club<\/a> with that of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Image:RomanEmpire_117.svg\">the Roman Empire at its height<\/a>&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3223\/2668880484_5c483f37a1_o.gif\" alt=\"The Union for the Mediterranean vs. the Roman Empire\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So, we&#8217;ve got Germany, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, the Canary Islands, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, a bit more north African desert and Scotland; they&#8217;ve got northern Cyprus, Switzerland, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, bits of Moldova, bits of Ukraine, bits of Dagestan and Chechnya, and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>I think I can safely say that we win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Launched officially today, and I&#8217;ve yet to work out what it&#8217;s all for (bar an ego trip for Sarkozy and a jolly for various heads of state, that is). Mark Mardell has the handiest overview I&#8217;ve found so far &#8211; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/2008\/07\/the-union-for-the-mediterranean\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,56,19],"tags":[102,103,47],"class_list":["post-1790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-history","category-rest-of-the-world","tag-mediterranean-union","tag-roman-empire","tag-sarkozy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1790\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}