ABSTRACT
The European Union (EU) and its member states have often sought to find ways to cooperate practically with authoritarian regimes in the Southern Mediterranean to maintain stability than pushing for democratic reforms in North Africa and the Middle East. Scholars tend to depict the European Neighbourhood Policy as an example of how the EU toned down its region-building aspirations in the Mediterranean in favour of promoting a kind of hub-and-spoke scheme with the EU at the core. The EU carried out a revision of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), partly in response to the post-Arab Spring developments in the Southern Mediterranean. Bicchi points out that the Arab uprisings have meant that many EU member states adopted a sort of 'hands off' attitude towards the countries in North Africa. The challenge for the EU after the Arab uprisings is that the deterioration of stability and security means that the aspects, rather than democracy, again become the major concern for the EU.
