The Euro-Mediterranean partnership

At the Barcelona Conference in November 1995, the European Union and 12 southern and eastern Mediterranean states established the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). Seen by the EU as a response to instability along its southern flank and by the other partners as a means of strengthening their economies, through anchoring them to Europe, the initiative is one of the most ambitious external projects ever undertaken by the European Union. Central to it are plans to create a free trade area including 30 countries and 800 million people by early in the twenty-first century. In the eyes of its architects, the EMP promises to counter the acute political, economic and social problems affecting the EU's Mediterranean neighbours. These problems increasingly affect European countries as recipients of migrants and as refuges (and sometimes targets) for radical Islamist groups. While the European Union places its faith in free market responses to the economic challenges, it is encouraging security cooperation as a further means of fostering Mediterranean stability. The EMP is important at three levels: as an attempt to bring stability to an area renowned for conflict; as a conscious exercise in the construction of a multinational region, embracing three of the world's major cultures; and as a key test for the EU as it attempts to develop a common foreign and security policy. The economic dimension of the Barcelona process has been its most tangible thus far. Will the North African economies be able to cope with the liberation of market forces or will greater social and political unrest ensue? Can the Mediterranean partners expect to benefit from an initiative in which Europeans set the agenda? These are two of the crucial questions addressed in these pages by economists, political scientists and international relations specialists. While some contributions provide overviews, others examine key partners (Spain, Morocco, Egypt), for national interests and ambitions have surfaced repeatedly. This is one of the first assessments of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, focusing primarily on its political and economic dimensions.