ABSTRACT
The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership reflects the hegemony that Europe has established over the Mediterranean region. Southern Mediterranean countries have participated for lack of an alternative, but they remain highly sceptical. The project’s security aims are flawed by EU disunity over a common foreign and security policy and the fact that a third party – the USA – remains the region’s key security player. Southern Mediterraneans feel that Europeans have misunderstood the significance of Islamism and in fact may be unwittingly helping illiberal political forces by imposing a neo-liberal economic agenda. Southern Mediterraneans complaints relate to controls on population mobility, rigid EU prescriptions for economic reform, and the reliance of the project on increases in foreign investment which will not necessarily materialize. The Partnership is paternalistic, full of contradictions and offers little hope of resolving the social, economic and political problems of the region.
