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Euro-Mediterranean Relations and the Arab Spring

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Euro-Mediterranean Relations and the Arab Spring Background Brief No. 6 October 2011 Euro-Mediterranean relations and the Arab Spring Summary This background paper begins with a reflection on Euro- Mediterranean relations from the 1970s to the launch of the Union for the Mediterranean initiative in 2008. Contents Many analysts believe that the recent events in the EU-Mediterranean 4 Middle East / North Africa (popularly referred to as the relations before the Arab Spring Arab Spring) is a test for the future of Euro- Mediterranean relations. Some scholars have even gone The EU’s response to 12 the Arab Spring as far as to suggest that the unfolding of these events, in which the EU was caught unprepared, reflect a failure Consequences of the 15 Arab Spring for the future of the EU’s neighbourhood policy in promoting of Euro-Mediterranean democracy and human rights. As the countries in partnership Middle East and North Africa undergo difficult Conclusion 20 transitions toward democracy, it is time that the EU reflects on its policy and rethinks its approach in engaging that region. The paper concludes with some Author reflections on the EU’s longer term concerns and Vera Knoops Visiting Associate, EU Centre in interests in the region, and consequences of the Arab Singapore (March – July 2011) Spring on the EU-Mediterranean partnership. Editor s Dr Yeo Lay Hwee Director, EU Centre in Singapore The EU Centre is a partnership of: Assoc Prof Barnard E Turner Senior Fellow, EU Centre in Singapore Contents Page 1. Introduction 3 2. EU-Mediterranean relations before the Arab Spring 4 The Global Mediterranean Policy 5 The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: the Barcelona Process 6 EU’s European Neighbourhood Policy and its impact on the Euro- 8 Mediterranean Partnership The French proposal - Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) 10 3. The EU’s response to the Arab Spring 12 4. Consequences of the Arab Spring for the future of Euro- 15 Mediterranean partnership The transition to democracy 15 The role of political Islam 16 17 Economic and energy considerations Regional balance of power 18 Migration and refugees 19 5. Conclusion 20 References 22 Cover photo: Catherine Ashton, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (centre), on a visit to Damascus, Syria, in March 2010, with Vassilis Bontosoglou, Head of the Delegation of the EU in Syria (1st from left). (Credit © European Union, 2011) 2 Euro-Mediterranean relations and the Arab Spring 1. Introduction impact on the EU’s relations with its neighbours in the Southern and Eastern Europe and the southern/eastern Mediterranean region. Mediterranean region are historically and Since its earlier days as the European geographically connected. A growing number Economic Community (EEC), the EU has tried of citizens and immigrants in the European to find a common platform to engage the Union (EU) trace their origins to these countries in this region - from the 1972 Global countries (Moussis 2009). The EU has a long- Mediterranean Policy to the Euro- standing relationship with many of these Mediterranean Partnership of the 1990s and countries to the south and east of the the ambitious Union for the Mediterranean Mediterranean Sea. This background brief proposed by French President Nicholas provides a broad overview of the EU’s Sarkozy in 2007. The configuration of approach towards its Southern and Eastern countries making up the so-called Mediterranean neighbours and considers ‘Mediterranean partners’ of the EU, has also some of the implications that developments changed over the years. The EEC’s Global unfolding in the region could have on the EU’s Mediterranean Policy (GMP) for instance, was policy going forward. 1 open to all states around the Mediterranean. However, in the 1980s, several of the states After the public self-immolation of the that were in the Global Mediterranean Policy Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi – Greece, Portugal and Spain – joined the on 17 December 2010, unrest spread from European Community. The configuration of Tunisia to Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria, and EU’s Mediterranean partners shifted again there have been also pockets of unrest in when the EU launched the new Euro- Bahrain and various Gulf states. Popular Mediterranean partnership (also known as protests in Tunisia and Egypt have the Barcelona Process) in 1995. The Balkan unexpectedly overthrown the long-standing countries (making up the former Yugoslavia) regimes of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali that used to be considered as part of the and President Hosni Mubarak, but in Syria, Mediterranean were now referred to as Yemen, the protests are ongoing with no Eastern European countries and the signs of abating, with the likelihood of more relationship with them moved to be part of bloodshed. the broader European Neighbourhood Policy. The EU is currently struggling to respond to The Barcelona Process also included countries these historic yet complex developments. The from North Africa and the Middle East but not dilemma underlying current EU policies Libya, which was then under United Nations towards these countries was recently (UN) sanctions, and hence not invited by the expressed by President of the European EU to participate in the Barcelona Process. Council, Herman van Rompuy, who said that ‘it was a difficult choice between defending With the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), our values such as human rights and our membership broadened to include Libya, interests, such as stability in the Middle East’. To provide a better insight into this quandary, 1 The GMP covered the following states: Albania, Algeria, this paper will investigate the extent and Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Israel, Lebanon, Libya, Malta, areas in which the Arab Spring will have an Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey and Yugoslavia. 3 some of the Balkan countries and Albania and and eastern Mediterranean region, while at Mauritania, which had already requested for the same time being mindful of the partnership under the Barcelona Process. complexities arising from the Israel-Palestine What constitutes the ‘Mediterranean region’ conflict, the role of political Islam and the has therefore seemed to be defined by the EU sensitive issue of migration flows to the EU. according to its shifting interests and The Lisbon Treaty which aims to make the EU priorities (Cardwell 2011: 224-230). a more coherent and effective global actor has come into force generating further The paper comprises three sections. The first expectation of the EU with its European section traces the EU’s (with its earlier External Action Service (EEAS) to respond incarnation as the EEC) relations with the more coherently to developments in this various countries on the southern and eastern neighbourhood. The paper concludes with the Mediterranean from the 1970s. Security, observation that it remains to be seen if the Israeli-Arab relations, energy and new ‘Partnership for Democracy and Shared development have always been the factors Prosperity’ proposed by the EU will ensure shaping the ‘tenet’ of the relationship. The the best outcome for the EU and its EU’s approach to these countries has shifted Southern/Eastern Mediterranean neighbours. over the years, from the enthusiastic pursuit of inter-regional dialogue in the 1970s to a The research for this background brief has more nuanced mix of bilateralism and been supplemented by interviews with regionalism in recent years. The EU’s policy journalists, researchers and policy makers. has also wavered between a more idealistic desire to promote democracy and human rights in the region, particularly in the first 2. EU-Mediterranean relations before decade of the post-Cold War era, to a the Arab Spring pragmatic pursuit of economic interests and its broader concern for political stability in the In 1958, when the Treaty of Rome came into region. force, six European countries – West Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg The second section briefly discusses some of and the Netherlands – founding members of the causes of the Arab Spring, and attempts the European Coal and Steel Community to answer the issue of whether the EU has (ECSC) became the European Economic played any role in the changes taking place in Community (EEC). The establishment of the the countries ranging from Tunisia, Egypt to EEC, which created a customs union among Syria and Yemen. The perception that the EU these states, posed, among some questions, was caught unprepared for the wave of how to maintain mutually beneficial protests in several of these countries that are economic relations with their neighbours to partners in the EU-Mediterranean partnership the south of the Mediterranean. The gave rise to questions about possible discussion of relations with the southern shortcomings on the part of the EU in its neighbours became more pressing with the engagement of the region. impending accession of the United Kingdom (UK) to the EEC. The UK had maintained a The consequences of the Arab Spring on the much more liberal policy with regard to future of EU-Mediterranean relations are imports from the non-European addressed in the third section. This section Mediterranean countries before it applied to discusses the EU’s search for a way forward to become a member of the EEC. Joining the EEC support democratic reform in the southern meant that the UK would have to adopt the 4 common external tariff which was much Mediterranean partners (especially the Arab higher than its own. Many exporters, countries) were trying to pursue what they including non-European Mediterranean believed was economic independence countries would lose the easier and cheaper through an import substitution strategy. access to the UK market. Hence the question While the GMP did not seem to be of much arose as to whether the EEC should impose a economic significance, it had the unintended common tariff for all its neighbouring consequence of contributing to a shift in the Southern Mediterranean countries or European approach towards the Israeli-Arab negotiate different tariffs for the different conflict in which the EEC acknowledged the countries in the region on a bilateral basis.
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