It is the original sea of epics, crossed by Ulysses on his journey home and Aeneas on his way to founding what became Rome. So it is natural for European leaders to cast their actions in the Mediterranean in grand terms.

The latest example comes from France’s new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, whose efforts to move Europe closer to northern Africa are being presented within a vision of a new union of nations along the Mediterranean.

Europe — France and Italy in particular — has trouble integrating Muslim immigrants and worries about Islamic extremists. So, under this grand vision, efforts would be made to invest in and give favourable trade terms to North African states. In theory, these nations would become richer over time, and their people would have fewer incentives to leave.

The notion is beguiling: rich and poor nations, democratic and not, Muslims and Christians, from North Africa and Asia Minor and the Middle East and Western Europe, lashed together to form a richer and safer region.

It will probably never happen, at least not in the formal way Sarkozy and other European leaders have been talking about it.

Still, the project remains a useful lens for seeing how Europe is focusing more tightly on its backyard to solve immediate problems: Muslim immigration, crime and terror, and Russia’s politicisation of its energy supplies.

Take the recent events involving the region’s most troublesome member, Libya. Last month, Sarkozy’s wife helped free five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor held there for eight years on charges of infecting children with HIV. Sarkozy visited the next day. Then, on Friday, France announced an arms deal with Libya.

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