European Security Practices vis-à-vis the Mediterranean

Abstract:

This paper analyses the implications of European security practices vis-à-vis the Mediterranean in value terms as deduced from an analysis of ‘facts on the ground’ and local actors’ perspectives (based on interviews conducted in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco).

It is argued that European security practices have had adverse implications for various security referents in the South. While it is too soon to tell whether the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ has been delayed or brought on by such collaboration, the research shows how Euro-Mediterranean security collaboration has rendered more defenceless the already vulnerable individuals and societies in the South and how Southern Mediterranean states/regimes and societies have become further alienated from each other following such collaboration.

The paper also highlights how the very practices adopted by European actors to secure the Union and its values may have rendered it less secure insofar as they have had consequences for the very meaning of what it means to be ‘European’.