ABSTRACT
In the aftermath of 9/11, the reiteration and insistence on linking the Mediterranean/Arab World to terrorism continues to contribute to the negative image of the South. Some analysts have suggested that this re-emphasis is the expression of an interpretation of security in ‘Westcentric’/ ‘Eurocentric’ terms, particularly evident in the media. The creation of an area of peace and stability in the Mediterranean area is thus seen as desirable for European security and related issues such as ‘illegal’ immigration, drug trafficking, Islamic radicalism and international terrorism, perceived as affecting European security. These are the issues highlighted in EU documentation and by the European press,1 that link (in)security to Southern countries. Such readings, have encouraged this author to analyse such positions in-them-selves. In this chapter, I present some select results of my analysis of EU documentation and try to shed some light on the relations between the Mediterranean as a field of knowledge the EU partakes in the constitution of, and wider discursive practices of EU foreign policy. I do this by offering a discursive constructivist analysis of the field of the Mediterranean in the development/process of official articulations by EU actors and in the context of EU structures and institutions. This analysis leads me to suggest a complex pattern of continuity in EU practices on the Mediterranean field. The key thing about the Mediterranean case is the regularity of the markers used across EU discourses rather than the variation.
