EU Counterterrorism and the Southern Mediterranean Countries after the Arab Spring: New Potential for Cooperation?

Abstract

The European Union's (EU) relationship with North African countries has long been the subject of intense academic enquiry. For many years, the EU has performed a difficult balancing act between managing the security concerns of its member states, dealing with authoritarian regimes that have questionable human rights records, creating and maintaining good economic relations, and pursuing more normative objectives. Have security objectives overridden other concerns? While the EU has cooperated with regimes with questionable human rights records, counterterrorism cooperation between the EU and North African countries has not developed as much as previous academic studies believe. However, what are the prospects of this changing with more recent developments after the Arab Spring? This article examines in detail the reasons why the EU does not currently conduct significant counterterrorism cooperation with North African countries and discusses whether this situation is likely to change as a result of the events of the Arab Spring, which has swept through North Africa and the Middle East since 2010.

Keywords:

• Arab Spring
• Counterterrorism
• EU–North Africa Security Cooperation
• European Union
• North Africa

Notes

Research for this article was supported by two Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships awarded to Christian Kaunert and Sarah Léonard within the 7th European Community Framework Programme.

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14. G. Joffé, “The European Union, Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in the Maghreb,” 164.

15. R. Dannreuther, “Developing the Alternative to Enlargement: The European Neighbourhood Policy,” 198.

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18. See: Euro‐Mediterranean Partnership, 10th Anniversary Euro‐Mediterranean Summit, Barcelona, 27–28 November 2005, Annexes. Doc. EURO-MED 2/05, November 2005.

19. For more on these Association Agreements, see C. Kaunert and S. Leonard, “EU Counterterrorism and the European Neighbourhood Policy.” Terrorism and Political Violence 23(2), 286–309.

20. W. Rees, Transatlantic Counter-Terrorism Cooperation (London: Routledge, 2006).

21. Ibid.

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26. V. Mitsilegas, “EU Criminal Law,” 183.

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28. Council of the European Union, Friends of the Presidency's Report to the Future of Europol, Doc. 9184/1/06, 19 May 2006, p. 23.

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