ABSTRACT
With Morocco and Tunisia merely a few dozen kilometres from its southern shoreline, and Asia Minor on the horizon of many a Greek islander, the Mediterranean represents the nearest possible non-European region of EU foreign policy. European powers have often ventured across the ‘middle sea’, with their empires having dominated the southern shoreline until the midtwentieth century. Today’s Europe has shifted emphasis from empire-building to democracy-building. At least, this is the theory. In practice, security continues to overshadow policy design in various European chancelleries. As the Cold War drew to a close and the Maastricht Treaty was being signed, events such as the 1991 Gulf War, ongoing troubles in Palestine and Lebanon, a bloody civil war in Algeria, and region-wide growth in Islamist political parties continued to highlight the precariousness of the region’s future stability. By launching the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) in 1995, the Union demonstrated that it sought to respond to these issues and had every intention of capitalising on its opportunity. At the heart of this response was a commitment to promote democracy in the region. The departure point of this book is an exercise in teasing out ideas about the Barcelona Declaration’s commitment to the twin goals of association and democracy promotion, with special reference to Tunisia, the fi rst Arab signatory of an EU association agreement. How does association mediate democratisation, and how does democratisation feed into association?
