RABAT, July 10 (Xinhua) -- The proposed Union for the Mediterranean (UPM) is "designed to foster the march towards peace," including in the Middle East where international efforts appear to have stalled, a senior French official has said.

    The remarks were made Wednesday by Henri Guaino, a senior adviser to French President Nicolas Sarkozy during an interview with a Rabat-based Maghreb television channel, Medi1Sat.

    "The UMP is designed to create conditions for fostering a better understanding and better relations among the people of the two shores of the Mediterranean," said Guaino, in response to a question regarding Israel's presence at the inaugural summit on July 13.

    The new union, whose chief architect is President Sarkozy, is set to be officially launched during a Euro-Mediterranean Heads of State and Government Summit slated for Paris on Sunday.

    Regarding the perceived "problem" posed by Israeli participation in "certain Arab countries", the French presidential advisor said the presence of "Israel and Syria" and "all others" in Paris was a" significant contribution to a climate to revive dialogue".

    "It is also a significant contribution to the desire for peace that has been expressed everywhere. The UPM is not the union of peace but rather the union for peace," said Guaino, a longtime friend and ally of President Sarkozy.

    "The greatest success of the UPM is that on July 13 people who have not been talking, people who fought and sometimes hated one another will be seated around the same table," said Guaino who was speaking from Paris.

    "Peace will not spring from this summit as a miracle, but it is a first step," he stressed. "If we expect to work together to solve all political problems of the Mediterranean, we will have to wait for a long time. Besides, we've tried this method. It does not work," said the adviser.

    During the interview, Guaino also said that the objective of the UPM would be to avoid "pitfalls that have prevented" the success of the Barcelona process, a stalled Euro-Mediterranean cooperation framework launched by the EU in 1995.

    "The Barcelona framework was a process where everything was decided by the North. It was owned by the North. UPM, on the other hand, will be a process of cooperation in which there are shared responsibilities. It will be owned by all," said Guaino.

    Unlike the Barcelona process, according to the adviser, projects within the UPM are seen in priority in relation to resources. "It is not the availability of resources that will condition the projects but rather projects that will condition the resources."

    According to him, the union has on his table a hundred socio-economic projects. They ranged, he said, from associations that wanted to promote the empowerment of women in the Mediterranean to heavy infrastructure projects like a canal between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea.

    "Food security, civil security, pollution of the Mediterranean Sea, agricultural reforms, the creation of Mediterranean banks and centers for scientific research" are among the projects that must be put in place by the union, said Guaino.