ABSTRACT
In November 2005, the European Union, together with its partners in the
Southern Mediterranean basin,1 reviewed the progress of its major policy
initiative there, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership, 10 years after it was
initiated. At the founding conference of the Partnership in the city of Bar-
celona in November 1995, the new policy had been lauded, through the
Barcelona Declaration, as an attempt to create a region of shared peace,
prosperity, and stability in the Mediterranean basin. The normative objec-
tive, of course, concealed the real purpose of the policy, which was to apply the principles of soft security to enhancing European security along its
southern periphery. The soft security objectives were to be achieved pri-
marily by stimulating economic development in Southern Mediterranean
countries in order to minimize labor migration into Europe, seen at the time
as a major source of internal social, political, and economic tension in both
Europe and the countries concerned, given the demographic pressures they
faced.
