ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews Wilton Park’s work on the diverse Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and the European Union (EU)’s Southern Neighbourhood policies. Wilton Park covered key regional developments and policy challenges as they affected primarily European interests (e.g. energy security) since the 1980s. Regional conflicts including Israel-Palestine, the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf Wars received considerable attention, but Wilton Park was notably absent from efforts to rebuild Iraq after the defeat of the Saddam Hussein regime. The Arab Spring of 2010–2012 saw Wilton Park focus again on building democracy, the weakness of which was long believed to be a major root cause of problems and instability throughout the region. From a European perspective, if instability in the region increased, so would migration to Europe. Economic reform and inter-regional trade were seen as essential to tackle inter alia high levels of migration and unemployment. However restrictive EU trade practices remained an obstacle to growth, in particular in the Maghreb. Such policies, and the EU’s prioritisation of its Eastern dimension, have called into question its efficacy and influence in the MENA region, including its Southern Neighbourhood policy.
