The European Union and the Arab Spring: A (Missed?) Opportunity to Revamp the European Neighbourhood Policy

When the dust of the Arab revolts settles, how should EU policy towards the southern Mediterranean be reframed? The lion’s share of the thinking around this question has been devoted to one of the two pillars of the EU’s Mediterranean policies: the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). Whereas the ENP deals with the bilateral dimension of the EU’s Mediterranean policy, that is, the EU’s hub-and-spoke relations with individual southern Mediterranean countries, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), building on the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), provides the broader multilateral framework of such relations. The Arab spring has led, so far, to a rethink of the former rather than the latter.

Simultaneoulsy published as a Focus article at the Observatory of Euro-Mediterranean Policies.