Recreating ‘mare nostrum’

A clearer strategy would increase the EU’s influence in the southern Mediterranean, writes Toby Vogel.

The Romans called the Mediterranean simply mare nostrum, or "our sea". The EU, notwithstanding its north-western face on the Atlantic, wants to recreate some of that familiarity with the region - but without building up an empire first.

Almost the entire northern Mediterranean coastline is now either in the EU (after Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta entered in 2004), about to accede (Croatia), or set for eventual membership (Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania and, in theory, Turkey). This process began with the transitions to democracy, in the mid-1970s, of Spain, Portugal and Greece. The northern shoreline is not quite yet a contiguous arch of stability and prosperity; much business remains unfinished, notably in Bosnia and Albania, but it has certainly become an arch of democracy. Many attribute this development to the prospect of EU membership.

Under the Euro-Mediterranean partnership (Euromed), inaugurated in 1995 in Barcelona and hence often known as ‘the Barcelona Process’, the EU has been trying to influence a similar transformation in the countries on the other side of the water - but without offering them the prospect of membership. This is the European bloc’s first systematic attempt to deploy its fabled ‘soft power’ to an entire region while excluding it from the membership track, its main vehicle for effecting change in its neighbourhood. (Turkey, officially a candidate country, is a bit of a special case.)

Such an attempt has to be made. A number of Europe’s most immediate and pressing challenges originate from the wider Mediterranean region, perhaps none more visible, or politically explosive, than illegal migration and the fears it provokes in recipient countries, ranging from terrorism to ‘multiculturalism’ (these days often seen as a synonym for immigrants’ failure to integrate).

At the same time, the southern Mediterranean region also hosts material and cultural resources that may hold answers to some of the EU’s challenges. The Mediterranean acts as a major conduit for illegal migrants but also for oil and natural gas; it is the source of religious radicalism and terrorism but also, with a bit of geographical generosity, the birthplace of the world’s monotheistic religions.

But from the Western Sahara to Palestine, unresolved conflicts hamper domestic development and defy international diplomacy. Europe cannot ignore those conflicts any more than it can ignore what is happening in, say, Ukraine. The southern Mediterranean region is too close to Europe to ignore and the sea, the geographical boundary, links as well as divides. The problems of the Maghreb and the Levant are also Europe’s problems. And there are problems aplenty, from concerns about energy security and unresolved conflicts to migratory pressures and terrorism.

But does that mean that the Barcelona approach of ‘constructive engagement’ and deepening links (such as the free-trade area planned for 2010) has failed to produce reform? The Euromed partnership is a vehicle in need of a driver. It does not run on its own and it needs direction to get it to its destination.

To blame the Barcelona Process for the lack of political progress in the countries on the EU’s southern periphery would be mistaken. The main culprit on the EU’s side, rather, is the absence of a clear strategy, backed up by conditionality, for dealing with authoritarian regimes. This applies not just to the Maghreb and the Middle East but to other regions as well.

A clearer strategy would increase the EU’s influence in the southern Mediterranean, writes Toby Vogel.