Europe Should Not Forget the Challenges to its South

Summary:

In September 2022 European policy-makers were rightly focusing on the war in Ukraine and the economic challenges that Europe faced. But Europe should not think that it could insulate itself from what was happening to its south. This policy brief argues that Europe should help its Middle Eastern neighbours cope with the spill-overs from the conflict in Ukraine, such as higher global energy prices and lower food exports from the Black Sea region. But simply dealing with short term challenges would not be enough. European foreign policy towards the MENA region had often been incoherent, passive and ineffective. Europeans also needed to grapple with the realities of a changing region – there was a widespread perception of US withdrawal, while the influence of China and Russia had grown. Regional powers like Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia had become more assertive in advancing their interests. And new alignments were taking shape, most notably that between Israel, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. Europeans were losing their naivety about Russia – but they needed to do the same when it came to the MENA region.

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