Détente Dynamics: A Neoclassical Realist Perspective on EU Foreign Policy in the MENA Region (original) (raw)
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Addressing threats: European foreign policy toward the Middle East since the ESS
efsps.eu
The European Union is actively involved in Middle Eastern politics, suffice it to look at its role within the Quartet, the EU3 vis-à-vis Iran, two ESDP missions in Palestine, one police mission in Iraq and a European military support to the southern Lebanon Unifil mission. This goes without considering humanitarian aid, cooperation and trade agreements. Only for humanitarian aid, in 2006 ECHO's humanitarian assistance to the Middle East represented 1/5 of the total EU world assistance, summing up to EUR 134 million. While in geo-strategic terms, Europe depends for 45% of its oil supplies from the Middle East, 40% of which from Opec countries. These brief remarks show the multilayered nature of European interest in the region. The European involvement and engagement in the region responds to different sets of criteria, from reputation to political and geo-economic interests. Focusing on this region, this analysis will examine how security concerns are framed by the EU. The foreign and security policy discourses will by extrapolated by looking at General Affairs Council Conclusions (Gaerc) and at the European Council Presidency Conclusions. While since 9/11 the tone of the discourse towards the challenges posed by this region has shifted, paying greater attention to proliferation and terrorism, pragmatically the Union has failed to devise coherent strategies in these policy areas, due to the difficulty of reaching a sufficient degree of understanding with member states over the long-term strategies to deploy in the area.
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MENARA Future Notes, No. 1 (July 2016), 2016
The Middle East and North Africa are in turmoil, Europe’s security is inextricably linked to what happens in this region, and yet the EU has limited capacities to change realities on the ground. These are three of the main messages of the EU Global Strategy presented in June 2016. The document presents Europeans and the wider world with a vision on the international context in which the EU will operate in the coming years. It depicts a complex, contested and connected world, where the EU’s strategic interests must be coherent with its values. It also espouses the concept of principled pragmatism as a guide for the EU’s external action in the years ahead and mentions the concept of resilience more than forty times. The strategy acknowledges that the EU is not alone, that it needs to partner to be influential and that it has an interest in promoting cooperative regional orders. In the framework of the MENARA project, let’s launch a discussion on what could be the practical implications of this new vision for EU policies in the Middle East and North Africa in the next decade.
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Rome, IAI, November 2020, 22 p. (IAI Papers ; 20|37), ISBN 978-88-9368-159-9, 2020
The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is experiencing deep and profound challenges spanning the geopolitical and geoceonomic domains, as intra-state rivalry and competition mixes with mounting socioeconomic threats and fraying social contracts within multiple states in the region. Stepping back from the brink and developing new and inclusive frameworks for dialogue, de-escalation and confidence building in the region represents a generational challenge, requiring the active buy-in and support of regional actors themselves. The European Union has a vital interest in supporting such objectives, but needs to contend with limited capabilities, a retrenching United States and its lack of internal cohesion to have a positive impact. Against this backdrop, the EU should carefully priorities its engagements, working both internally and externally to improve its policies and leverage vis-à-vis three regional cleavages-the Arab-Israeli, the Saudi-Iranian, and the Arab-Turkish-and a number of associated "hot-spots" in an effort to mitigate the prevalence of zero-sum competition and contain the risk of new conflicts or crises, operationalising the EU's concept of "principled pragmatism" in the region.
Journal of Security Strategies, 2019
The literature on traditional and critical security studies mostly point out at a paradigm shift concerning the nature of security threats and challenges either caused or impacted upon by state, non-state, and transnational actors. From a security perspective, the European Union (EU) has been one of the most influential actors in its southern neighborhood covering the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and North Africa (MENA) regions particularly due to its active foreign policy influence mechanisms including European Strategy, European Neighborhood Policy, and most recently through its Global Strategy. Nonetheless, the EU foreign policies in the MENA region after the Arab uprisings have not been very successful in terms of promoting social, political, and economic stability and cooperation; and thus, it achieved mixed results instead of integrated outcomes. This paper addresses the difficulties and expectation-capability gaps in the EU’s foreign policies in the Middle East with a particular emphasis on the changing security structure and threats in the post-Arab Spring period. Therefore, this paper aims to assess the effectiveness of the Union’s regional strategies through the evaluation of its policies on volatile regions such as the Middle East.
Introduction: The Rise of Geopolitics in the EU’s Approach in Its Eastern Neighbourhood
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The article and the special section aim to discuss and contextualise the recent rise of traditional aspects of geopolitics in EU foreign policy with a focus on the region on its eastern borders (that the EU has identified as its Eastern Neighbourhood) and Russia. Contributions evaluate the way recent events in the international arena (such as the Ukraine crisis, the Arab Spring or the rise of ISIS) have emphasised the need for the EU to engage with traditional aspects of geopolitics and strategic thinking in foreign policy. While, an initial reading of the EU's recent development and behaviour in the Eastern Neighbourhood might point to the increasingly salience of traditional geopolitical considerations, the articles in the collection highlight that the hybrid nature of the EU also translates into its approach to geopolitics. Acknowledging that elements of traditional geopolitics are salient forces in world politics adds to the EU's hybrid approach and has made it reframe its search for authenticity CONTACT Cristian Nitoiu
Introduction: strategy in EU foreign policy
The point of departure for the special collection is provided by the observation that the growing complexity of the crises in the neighbourhood and the internal ones faced by the Union provides a sense of urgency to any type of strategic thinking that the EU might embrace. Against this backdrop, the recent shift towards geopolitics and strategic thinking is contextualized and the understanding of key aspects of ways in which the shift is translated into strategies by EU actors is put forward. The analysis recognizes the recent developments within the institutional dimension of EU’s foreign and security policy, yet it confirms the fundamental meaning of the member states’ willingness to invest resources and harmonize their foreign policy strategies at the EU level.