ABSTRACT
The uprisings of the ‘Arab Spring’ challenged Europe’s relations with its Southern neighbourhood. The European Union soon launched policy reform aimed at fostering deep and sustainable democracy, the scholarly assessment of which is, however, contentious. How does one main target group in the region, namely civil society, perceive post-‘Arab Spring’ European policies? Applying a perceptionist analytical framework, this chapter finds that the Tunisian NGO activists not only perceived, but also experienced, a substantial change in the European approach with respect to the democratic transition. However, in their opinion, European policy is not ‘unified’ and individual member states are more visible than the EU.
