ABSTRACT
The chapter exposes how and why the EU advanced intercultural dialogue (ICD) in the Mediterranean from the 9/11 2001 terror attacks to the eve of the December 2010 protests in the Arab world. The chapter labels this period as the phase of ‘consolidation’ of ICD. From late 2001 ICD rapidly achieved a priority position on the EU foreign policy agenda, with particular emphasis on its potential for attenuating the challenges for the stability of increased fundamentalism and xenophobia in the Euro-Mediterranean space. The consolidation of ICD was achieved through significant EU efforts concerning both the formulation and the implementation of this tool during the 2000s, also including the creation of a specific institution: the Anna Lindh Foundation. The chapter shows that such outcome was mostly due to the rooted conviction of Commission President Prodi and a few pro-Mediterranean EU countries chairing the Council about ICD’s potential contribution towards attenuating the types of tensions and misunderstandings affecting the people of the area. In particular, ICD was consolidated because these EU leaders were able to seize the opportunity created by the increase of such tensions in the emerging international scenario to put forward their vision for this tool in the Barcelona Process.
