Europe is in search of a new approach to the Middle East. Since the end of the Second World War, European policies in the Middle East have been torn between the old continent’s geographic contiguity, historical familiarity and privileged trade links with the Middle East and its ideological-strategic association with the United States. ‘Atlanticism’ meant a predisposition to recognize the preponderant position of the United States in the Middle East and to adjust to it. A more independent line and a will to challenge US preponderance generally have been characteristic less of newly assertive Europeanists than of old-style nationalists. Hence, General Charles de Gaulle’s ‘politique arabe de la France’ was a natural appendix of his decision to withdraw from the military branch of NATO in 1966. The bold oil initiatives of Enrico Mattei of Italy’s Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI) were aimed at challenging US companies’ predominance in the Middle Eastern oil market. Greece’s generally pro-Arab line had basically been a way to show some independence from Washington, which Athens perceived as being too complacent towards Turkey. Developing a specifically European line towards the Middle East, therefore, has been the result of a worldview in which some European governments wanted to express their independence from the United States and, to an extent, their unease with the constraints of the East-West divide and Cold War alignments.