The New Neighborhood Policy of the EU: An Appropriate Response to the Arab Spring?

The policy of the European Union (EU) toward the Southern Mediterranean has a longstanding tradition. ¹ It began in the 1970s with a patchwork of measures in the areas of trade and development. In the 1990s, security concerns after the end of the Cold War induced a systematic policy approach, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP). In the framework of a wider security agenda, the then EU-15 aimed at cooperating with 12 Mediterranean states in a broad set of policy domains. Democracy promotion was at the heart of this policy project, yet after 10 years of limited success, the Union changed direction. ² In 2005, it launched the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP), targeting both the Eastern and Southern neighbours. The ENP reflects more clearly the Union’s security concerns, yet democracy promotion is no longer high on the agenda. Although the ENP—along with its most recent project, Union for the Mediterranean (UfM)—continues to shape the relationships between the EU and the Southern Mediterranean, the Union quickly reacted to the upheavals in the Arab world. It reformulated its policy and promised a more effective and efficient implementation, particularly in the area of democracy promotion.