EU Power in the Middle East

Considering the increasing tensions and international competition in a very volatile region, if the EU seeks to become a strong actor in the MENA, it must uphold its values with tangible actions and not with contradictory statements, Assem Dandashly and Christos Kourtelis write.

In the last three decades, there has been a steady increase in the European Union’s efforts to shape the setting of its southern neighbourhood.

From the launch of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership in 1995, and the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) in 2004, to the 2008 Union for the Mediterranean, the dominant belief among policymakers in Brussels was that providing both financial and technical support would enable the EU to use its normative power to persuade its neighbours to accept its values.     READ MORE...