EU Relations with Islam in the Context of the EMP's Cultural Dialogue

Abstract

Starting from the awareness that Islam is both an internal and an external crucial factor the EU has come to deal with at the turn of the century, this article examines recent EU attitudes and initiatives towards Islam and Muslims with a focus on the framework of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). In this context, particular attention is given to the increased international concern with the development of its third basket, the one devoted to cultural and social exchanges across the Euro-Mediterranean space.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the editors of this volume in particular Dr Michelle Pace, for insightful comments and guidance. I am also grateful to both my mentors at the European Commission, Leonello Gabrici and Sandro Gozi, as well as Andrew Fielding, for their kind support throughout my research.

Notes

¹ With the fifth EU enlargement of 1 May 2004, the number of the partners that are not EU members has obviously decreased, since Malta and Cyprus joined the EU. Euro-Mediterranean relations clearly form a privileged area of EU External Relations and policy-making. During 2004 the Euro-Mediterranean partenariat became incorporated into the broader ‘European Neighbourhood Policy’ (ENP). As a framework designed to strengthen ‘the Union's relations with those neighbouring countries that do not currently have the perspective of membership of the EU’ (European Commission 2003:4), the ENP ‘reinforces the Barcelona Process and represents an essential plank in the implementation of the EU Strategic Partnership with the Mediterranean countries’ (European Commission, 2004c). It currently (2005) includes only ten southern Mediterranean states (that is, the original 12 minus those that became members of the EU in May 2004 – Cyprus and Malta – and Turkey – now a candidate country; plus Libya, which has the status of observer) as well as Armenia, Azerbajian, Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine. For an update on the EMP and its members see the EU weblink http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/external_relations/euromed. On the ENP see Johansson-Nogués (2004) and Smith (2005).

² cf. . As the Partnership's tenth anniversary is approaching, it is becoming evident that the Barcelona Process needs further impetus. Attention to the Mediterranean areas has thus been slightly redefined and has been included, as mentioned above, into the European Commission's vision for a Wider Europe and a Neighbourhood Policy: the New Framework for Relations with Our Eastern and Southern Neighbours (European Commission, 2003).

³ The third basket also includes the control of migration movements across the Mediterranean Sea.

⁴ On the meaning and importance of ‘Dialogue’ as ‘Dialogic Understanding’ in Euro-Mediterranean relations see the contribution by Michelle Pace in this volume.

⁵ The Forward Studies Unit (FSU) was re-structured and re-named Group of Policy Advisers (GOPA) with the change of College of Commissioners in 1999. In 2005, further to the installation in office of the Barroso Commission, the GOPA was in turn transformed and re-named as Board of European Political Advisers (BEPA).

⁶ The Constitutional Treaty was signed by the EU member states and candidate countries in October 2004; however, it will need to be ratified by all the 25 member states in order to be enforced.

⁷ Later on in this article I will expand on the contested notion of ‘moderate’ Islam/Muslims.

⁸ Wahhabism, also called Wahhābīya, is defined in the Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (Bowker [1997] 1999: 1031), as an ‘ultra-conservative, puritanical Muslim movement adhering to the Hanbalite law’. Its followers regard the Qur'an and the Sunna (i.e. the tradition deriving from the Prophet's life and religious experience) as the only sources of legitimacy for Islam, thus rejecting ‘1400 years of development and interpretation in Islamic theology and mysticism’ and forbidding ‘any importation of kāfir (pagan) culture in their society’. Wahhabism was founded in the Arabian peninsula in the eighteenth century by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb, who soon found support amongst the influential Al Sa‘ūd family. The conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia, still led by the Saudis, has since been its stronghold.

⁹ Salafism (from the arab Salaf, predecessors) is a sort of ‘puritanical’ interpretation of Islam which has been ideologically inspiring renewal of and political action in the Muslim (originally the Arab) world since the second half of the nineteenth century. It arose as a modernist response, through the re-appropriation of Islamic identity, to colonialism and the apparent European superiority; its main proponents were Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ‘Abduh. Salafism acquired a strong political character between the 1930s and the 1960s, primarily through the Muslim Brotherhood movement of Hasan al Banna. Influential figures of the second generation of the Muslim Brotherhood such, as Ala Maududi and Sayyid Qutb, contributed to developing the activist character of the movement and reinterpreted the notion of Jihad (literally, the strife for spiritual purification) in violent terms. Salafist thought did not originally consider violence as an appropriate method to achieve its aim – the re-Islamisation of society. Yet, the desire to revive the authentic and true principles of Islam by renewing and purging society from injustice, corruption and infidels combined with the Jihadist ideology has produced a deadly cocktail. These ideas have provided a powerful rhetoric for terrorist groups that claim to be inspired by Islam (cf. Joffé, 2004; Kepel, 2002).

¹⁰ See for instance the contribution of Juan Prat (then acting Director of the External Relations DG of the Commission) in the 1996 conference Islam in a Changing World – Europe and the Middle East (Prat, 1997).

¹¹ However, the original Commission's proposal dated back to February 2002 (cf. European Commission, 2002a/b).

¹² Further information on the work done by these groups can be found in the final report. See ‘Report by the High Level Advisory Group Established at the Initiative of the President of the European Commission’ (European Commission, 2003e).

¹³ All the relevant information was found on the following European Commission webpages: http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/commissioners/prodi/group/michalski_en.htm (accessed 28 August 2003) and http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/policy_advisers/experts_groups/index_en.htm (accessed 30 July 2003).

¹⁴ With the expression ‘Muslim countries’ I do not imply any predetermined relationship between Islam and politics. It is just to define the countries where Islam is the main religion of the majority of the population and/or has strongly influenced the local culture and history.

¹⁵ See UN General Assembly 1998 and also website http://www.un.org/Dialogue (accessed 15 April 2005).

¹⁶ The most prominent proponent of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm is Samuel Huntington (1998).

¹⁷ The OIC was set up by the kings and heads of state and government of Islamic States in Rabat, Morocco, in 1969. As of May 2005, it was composed of 56 countries. Its website states that the OIC is ‘the concrete expression of a great awareness, on the part of the Ummah, of the necessity to establish an Organization embodying its aspirations and capable of carrying out its just struggle against the various dangers which threatened it and still persist’ (cf. http://www.oic-oci.org (accessed 5 May 2005)). Haynes (2001), Khan (2001) and Sheikh (2002) have studied the growing role of the OIC and its attempt to represent Islam globally and transnationally and the implications for international relations.

¹⁸ All quotes in this paragraph from www.ircica.org, Introduction (accessed 16 May 2005).

¹⁹ Source: privately circulated European Commission. Cf. also Prodi (2002).