The Region-Building Practices of the EU in the Mediterranean: The EMP and ENP, What is Next?

Abstract

In this paper, the focus will be on the EU's region-building practice in the Mediterranean via an evaluation of the successes and failures of the EMP, ENP and operations under the ESDP. With this aim in mind, some general approaches to region-building and how the Mediterranean is defined will be briefly examined. Drawing on the experiences of the Union on the ground, an assessment will be made as to what the next move of the Union in the Mediterranean will be in order for it to realise the aims stated in the Union's Security Document.

Notes

1. Kalypso Nicolaïdis and Robert Howse, ‘“This is My EUtopia …”: Narrative as Power’, Journal of Common Market Studies 40/4 (2002), pp. 768–82.

2. Raffaella A. Del Sarto, 'Region Building, European Union Normative Power, and Contested Identities: The Case of Israel’, in Emanuel Adler, Federica Bicchi and Beverly Crawford (eds.), The Convergence of Civilizations: Constructing a Mediterranean Region (London: University of Toronto Press, 2006), pp. 296–99.

3. Benita Ferrero-Waldner, ‘Tenth Anniversary Summit Underlines Maturity of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’, Med. 2006 2005 in the Euro-Mediterranean Space, IEMed and CIDOB Foundation (2006), p. 16

4. Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford, ‘Normative Power: The European Practice of Region Building and the Case of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP)’, Paper posted at the Scholarship Repository, University of California, California, 2004, p. 13, available at http://repositories.cdlib.org/ies/04400 accessed in August 2004.

5. See Karl W. Deutsch, Political Community in the North Atlantic Area (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957). As Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, following Deutsch, suggested, ‘security communities’ came to be being at the international/regional level when states increasingly shared same definition of the problem, a same way of thinking (shared norms) and of doing (shared practices), and most importantly a same notion of security defined in terms of the community and not individual members. E. Adler and M. Barnett, ‘Security Communities in Theoretical Perspectives’, in E. Adler and M. Barnett (eds.), Security Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 3–28.

6. Niklas Bremberg Heijl, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Euro-Mediterranean Security Revisited’, Mediterranean Politics 12/1 (2007), pp. 1–14.

7. Del Sarto, ‘Region Building’, pp. 296–336; R. Vayrinen, ‘Regionalism: Old and New’, International Studies Review 5/1 (2003), pp. 25–52. The debate on New Regionalism is based on constructivist premises. For the New Regionalism, see Young J. Choi and James A. Caporasa, ‘Comparative Regional Integration’, in Walter Carlnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth A. Simmons (eds.), Handbook of International Relations (London: Sage 2002), pp. 480–99. Within the vision of A. Wendt, the referent object of this debate is still the states. However, the interests and the security predicaments of the states depend on their defined identities (we–other relations). Within this relation, it is underlined that any kind of community-making is an attempt at redefining of ‘we’ and ‘other’. In this sense, New Regionalism points out that region building is in a way defining ‘we-ness’; A. Wendt, Social Theory of International Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999). Depending on the changes in the boundaries of the region and the community ‘a new we may be created’. E. Adler and B. Crawford, ‘Normative Power: The European Practice of Region Building and the Case of Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’, in Emanuel Adler, Federica Bicchi and Beverly Crawford (eds.), The Convergence of Civilizations: Constructing a Mediterranean Region (London: University of Toronto Press 2006), pp. 296–99.

8. Heijl, ‘Between a Rock’, pp. 2–4.

9. Heijl, ‘Between a Rock’, pp. 2–4.

10. RSCT seems to be suited to explain the security/insecurity dynamics in the Mediterranean because, as Buzan and Waever stated: ‘the regional level stands more clearly on its own as the locus of conflict and cooperation for states.’ B. Buzan and Ole Waever, Region and Powers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003), p. 10; To Buzan and Waever, a RSC is ‘a set of units whose major processes of securitisation–de-securitisation, or both are so interlinked that their security problems can not reasonably be analysed or resolved apart from one another.’ Buzan and Waever, Region and Powers, p. 44.

11. Heıjl, ‘Between a Rock’, pp. 1, 3; In the words of Buzan and Waever, there is no Mediterranean Security Complex. Instead they defined a broader ‘Middle Eastern RSC’. This complex is consisted of three sub-complexes, namely Maghreb (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, and Western Sahara), Levant (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan) and Gulf (Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Palestine). Buzan and Waever, Region and Powers, pp. 188–91. By using the analysis of Buzan and Waever, Said Haddadi defines the Western Mediterranean (that is composed of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Italy, France, and Spain) as an example of sub-complex called liaison security complex between two parent complexes, namely the European RSC and the Middle Eastern RSC, for details see S. Haddadi, ‘The Western Mediterranean as a Security Complex: A Liaison between the European Union and the Middle East?’, Jean Monnet Working Papers in Comparative and International Politics, JMWP 24 (1999).

12. Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) was launched as a multilateral forum in 1995 and shares both cooperative and liberal reform security discourses. This partnership comprising three chapters, namely political and security partnership (Basket One), economic and financial partnership (Basket Two) and social, cultural and human partnership (Basket Three), comes at the top of the important multilateral projects that have been launched so far in the region. For details also see Sven Biscop, ‘Opening up the ESDP to the South: A Comprehensive and Cooperative Approach to Euro-Mediterranean Security’, Security Dialogue 34/2 (2003), p. 186.

13. Under the impact of the EU's enlargement process, European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) was launched in 2003 as the new stabilisation tool of the Union's foreign policy towards the Union's periphery including the Mediterranean. This new strategy is based on the EU developing different Action Plans with each different country. Maria A. Sabiote, ‘When ESDP Confronts ENP: Security Sector Reform as a Bridge in the EU's Foreign Policy’, Obs Working Paper 71 (2006), available at http://selena.uab.es/_cs_iuee/cata/obs/working%20papers/wp712006.pdf accessed in July 2007.

14. Federica Bicchi, ‘The European Origins of Euro-Mediterranean Practices’, in Adler et al. (eds.), The Convergence of Civilizations, pp. 138–9.

15. In 1972 the French delegation put forward a proposal on creating an all-inclusive free trade area for industrial goods for the Mediterranean countries plus Israel and Spain. Despite the fact that French proposal was based on ‘communitarian orientation with global approach’ it actually brought a regional structure through which Europeans succeeded in replacing the ‘patchwork of Agreements with a proper framework’. R. Gomez, ‘The EU's Mediterranean Policy: Common Foreign Policy by the Back Door?’, in J. Petterson and H. Sjursen (eds.), A Common Foreign Policy for Europe? Competing Visions for the CFSP (London: Routledge 1998).

16. For instance various bilateral agreements were signed: as seen in the Association Agreements between the EC and respectively Greece and Turkey in 1961. Moreover, in the 1960s and at the beginning of the 1970s the EC concluded trade agreements with Egypt and Lebanon. Bicchi, ‘The European Origins’, p. 139.

17. Annette Jünemann, ‘Security Building in the Mediterranean after September 11’, in Annette Jünemann (ed.), Euro-Mediterranean Relations After September 11 (London: Frank Cass 2004), p. 5.

18. For example, according to Emanuel Adler and Beverly Crawford the typical example of this is the EU. These scholars assumed that the creation of a regional community in the EU would be based on the normative premises of the European acquis communautaire. The recent practice of what Adler and Crawford assumed has been realised in the EU's last (2004) expansion to Central and Eastern Europe. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, pp. 16–17.

19. For example, F. Attinà, ‘The Building of Regional Security Partnership and the Security–Culture Divide in Mediterranean Region’, in Adler et al. (eds.), The Convergence of Civilizations, pp. 239–65.

20. For example, W.D. Coleman and G.R.D. Underhill (eds.), Regionalism and Global Economic Cooperation (London: Routledge 1998).

21. Vayrinen, ‘Regionalism: Old and New’.

22. Attinà, ‘The Building of Regional Security Partnership’, p. 242.

23. Besides the EMP one can trace other important multilateral activities projected for the stability of the Mediterranean area, such as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean (1989), the Council of Mediterranean (1992), the West Mediterranean Forum: 5 + 5 Talks (Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya; 1990), the Mediterranean Forum: 3 + 3 Forum (Italy, France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia; 1994). For the details of these initiatives see Stephen C. Calleya, ‘The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and Sub-Regionalism: A Case of Region Building?’, in Adler et al. (eds.), The Convergence of Civilizations, pp. 110–16; Frédéric Volpi, ‘Introduction: Strategies for Regional Cooperation in the Mediterranean: Rethinking the Parameters of the Debate’, Mediterranean Politics 11/2 (2006), p. 129.

24. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, p. 24.

25. Pinar Bilgin, ‘A Return to “Civilizational Geopolitics” in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era’, Geopolitics 9/2 (2004), p. 272.

26. Bilgin, ‘A Return to “Civilizational Geopolitics”’, p. 273.

27. It is true that both in the 1995 Barcelona Declaration and 2000 Document of Common Strategy for the Mediterranean are the documents based on indivisibility of security across the two sides of Mediterranean Basin. EU Common Strategy for the Mediterranean, available at http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/r15002.htm accessed on 21 August 2008. In these documents the threats are listed foremost as threats of terrorism, WMD, organised crime and so on.. In these documents the threats are listed foremost as threats of terrorism, WMD, organised crime and so on.

28. The EMP as a European Initiative has been launched since 1995 in Barcelona. The EU and the partner states committed themselves with the Barcelona Declaration to the task of transforming the Mediterranean into a region of peace, prosperity and stability. Within this context the EMP has given priority to constructing various bilateral association agreements between partner states with various forms of multilateral cooperation on the economic, political and cultural levels. The EMP's importance comes from its normative dimension that is based on the values of human rights and democratisation.

29. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, pp. 31–2.

30. In his speech at the UN General Assembly Meeting in 2004 the Spanish Prime Minister proposed a new initiative between the Western World and the Arab/Muslim World. A meeting was held in Palme de Mallorca in November 2005 to discuss this proposal. There, with the co-sponsorship of Turkey, the initiative Alliance of Civilization was launched. Despite the fact that this initiative fell short of realising its ultimate objectives, still it has symbolic and concrete importance because it is an attempt to define the problems of a common understanding between different cultures.

31. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, p. 32.

32. For the explanation of the concept of Broader Mediterranean, see Introduction to this volume.

33. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, p. 28.

34. Jünemann, ‘Security Building’, pp. 1–20.

35. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, p. 31.

36. Adler and Crawford, ‘Normative Power’, p. 31; for further views on this issue, see Heijl, ‘Between a Rock’, p. 10.

37. Attinà, ‘The Building of Regional Security Partnership’, p. 242.

38. p > ¹ After 9/11, the Djerba Tragedy, and the Casablanca, Madrid and London bombings, all posed serious challenges to the EU by demonstrating that ‘proximity matters in the North African–European nexus’. Fred Tanner, ‘North Africa, Partnership, Exceptionalism and Neglect’, in R. Dannreuther (ed.), European Union Foreign and Security Policy towards a Neighbourhood Strategy (London: Routledge 2004), p. 145. The proximity is related to the Muslim and North African diasporas, whose number is approximately 10 million in the European countries, and the possibility of securitisation of Islam, at least, at the national level of European states. This proximity also indicates the decline of the European cooperative security perspective which was defined in the EMP, for its own periphery: Richard Gillespie, ‘Onward but not Upward: The Barcelona Conference of 2005’, Mediterranean Politics 11/2 (2006), p. 274, see Visne Korkmaz's contribution to this volume ‘Constructing the Mediterranean in the Face of New Threats: Are theEU's Words Really News?’, European Security, 17/1, 2008, pp. 141–160.

39. In this respect, two contradictory voices were arisen: Tel Aviv accused Brussels of financing terrorist activities in the Middle East whereas Said Haddadi warned that Brussels’ soft approach to certain measures in fighting terrorism could be exploited by some political forces, leading to further suppression of political freedom and the delaying of political reforms among the Mediterranean partners. Said Haddadi, ‘The EMP and Morocco: Diverging Political Agenda?’ in Mediterranean Politics, 8/2–3, (2003), pp. 73–90. Also see Visne Korkmaz's contribution to this volume ‘Constructing the Mediterranean in the Face of New Threats: Are the EU's Words Really News?’, European Security 17/1, 2008, pp. 141–160.

40. For instance EROMESCO's annual conferences that are held along with other permanent meetings with this conviction evaluated as an important contribution.

41. See for details Álvaro de Vasconcelos, ‘Democratic Security Ten Years on’, Med. 2006 2005 in the Euro-Mediterranean Space, IEMed and CIDOB Foundation (2006), p. 14.

42. J. Solona, ‘A Secure Europein a Better World’ available at http://ue.eu.int/uedocs/cmsUpload/ 78367.pdf accessed on 21 August 2008.

43. Bilgin, ‘A Return to “Civilizational Geopolitics”’, p. 274.

44. Bilgin, ‘A Return to “Civilizational Geopolitics”’, pp. 274–5.

45. J. Solana, A Secure Europe in a Better World, European Security Strategy, Brussels (2003), available at http://www.eu.int accessed in August 2007.

46. Michael Pace, ‘The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership and the Common Mediterranean Strategy? European Union Policy from a Discursive Perspective’, Geopolitics 9/2 (2007), p. 300.

47. This kind of a viewpoint can be found in Bilgin, ‘A Return to “Civilizational Geopolitics”’, p. 300.

48. Eduard Soler I. Lecha, ‘Barcelona + 10: Cleavages and Alliances’, CFSP Forum 4/2 (March 2006), p. 3, available at htpp://www.fornet.info/documents/CFSP%20FORUM%20vol%204%20n0%202.pdf. accessed on 21 August 2008.

49. European Commission, Communication from the Commission, Europe and Neighborhood Policy, Strategy Paper, COM (2004) 373 final, Brussels 12 May 2004; Martin Ortega, ‘Ideas for the Future of the Barcelona Process in the Sphere of the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP)’, Med. 2006 2005 in the Euro-Mediterranean Space, IEMed and CIDOB Foundation (2006), p. 5.

50. Maria A. Sabiote, ‘When ESDP Confronts ENP’, p. 1. See also Joint Declaration of the Paris Summit for the Mediterranean, Paris, 13 July 2008.

51. Biscop, ‘Opening of the ESDP to the South’, pp. 186–7.

52. J. Spear, ‘The Emergence of a European “Strategic Personality”’, Arms Control Today, Arms Control Association, (November 2003), available at http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_11/Spear.asp. accessed on 21 August 2008.

53. Cooperative and comprehensive security methods are based on cooperative security understanding. Cooperative security is comprehensive, and links classic security elements to economic, environmental, cultural and human right factors. Besides, it reflects the belief that security is indispensable so one state's security is linked that of the others. The pre-requirements of cooperative security can be assumed to be ‘confidence and cooperation’.

54. Sabiote, ‘When ESDP Confronts ENP’, p. 4.

55. For the timetable of EU's Gaza Mission see ‘EU Gaza Mission’, DE, Defence-Europe.org, available at http://www.sibrussels.org/gaza.htm accessed in August 2007.

56. EU Border Assistance for Rafah (EU BAM Rafah); in November 2005, the Council of the EU decided to launch the EU border assistance mission at Rafah border crossing point (PcP), to monitor its operation. A mission duration of 12 months includes approximately 70 personnel. It is also intended that EU BAM Rafah is to contribute to building up confidence between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority. See details at http://www.europa-eu-un.org/articles/es/article_5366.es.htm accessed in August 2007.

57. On 14 November 2005, the Council established an EU Police Mission that is code-named EUPOLCORPS, in the Palestinian Territories under the ESDP. The operation phase started on 1 January 2006 and has a initial duration of three years. See http://www.consilium.europa.eu/cms3_fo/showpage.asp?id=a74&Laung=EN accessed in August 2007.

58. The UN Secretary General said that the UN Security Council's inability to act sooner to stop the hostilities in Lebanon had badly shaken the World's faith in its authority and integrity. Eventually, on 11 August 2006, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1701 which called for the cessation of all attacks by Hezbollah and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations. The UNSCR 1701 also authorises the deployment of an expanded UN mission. For the first time the EU as a single entity has played a crucial role in the preparation and deployment of a UN peacekeeping force. The Union promised 7000 blue helmets to the strengthened UNIFIL in Lebanon. Besides, the Commission has already pledged _42 million for the reconstruction of infrastructure, support for the rule of law and internal security, as well as assistance to the private sector to help rejuvenate the economy. See details available at http://ries.gr/index.php?option=com_contet&task=view&id=43 accessed on 21 August 2008. See also Matias Dembinski, ‘Europe and the UNIFIL II Mission: Stumbling in to the Conflict Zone of the Middle East’ CFPS Forum 5/1 (January 2007), available at http://www.fornet.info/documents/CFSP%20Forum%20Vol%205%20no201pdf, pp. 1–4.

59. Biscop, ‘Opening of the ESDP to the South’, pp. 183–97.

60. Biscop, ‘Opening of the ESDP to the South’, p. 183.

61. Previously in the mid-1990s the initiation of EUROFOR and EUROMARFOR by the EU met a similar cautious reaction on the side of the southern partners. A. Jünemann, ‘Repercussions of the Emerging European Security and Defence Policy on the Civil Character of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership’, in Jünemann (ed.), Euro-Mediterranean, p. 45.

62. For example among the Arab partners of the Mediterranean one can observe two kinds of divisions. In the geographical division, the Maghreb countries are more inclined to intensify cooperation in sub-regional frameworks such as the West Mediterranean Forum. In contrast Mashreq countries do not have such structured engagement in the Mediterranean. The political division relates to the efforts of the region's states to undertake strengthening of democratisation. For instance, Morocco and Jordan as well as the Palestinian National Authority have shown stronger commitment to the agenda of democratisation. Therefore, according to Lecha, these countries seem readier to support the agendas of the EU, whereas others such as Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria are more suspicious of ENP. Lecha, ‘Barcelona + 10’, p. 3.

63. Among the EU member states, one can observe two divergent viewpoints concerning the Union's external relations. For instance the countries of the Europe's northern and eastern basin support the eastern politics of the Union whereas the southern Europeans give their support to prioritising Mediterranean politics. Though a gap exists between the northern and southern Europeans’ external foreign policy preferences, both eastern politics and Mediterranean politics still live side by side in the Union's CFSP.

64. Lecha, ‘Barcelona + 10’, p. 2.

65. Niklas B. Heijl, ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Euro-Mediterranean Security Revisited’, Mediterranean Politics, 12/1, (2007), p. 2.