A consistent cooperation strategy between European Union member states and their partners in the east and south Mediterranean and eastern Europe is in the limelight this week. Researchers and experts in the relevant states have been assessing the findings of a thorough survey on the strategy and whether or not it lives up to its objectives. The survey was conducted by the EuroMeSCO, an EU-financed research and analysis organisation. It had 12 key questions for each party, and its findings are consulted by EU officials for the formulation of future policies.
While the survey has been ongoing for over ten years, with the participation of think-tanks and research centres in the relevant states, this year’s questionnaire is significant in that it coincides with the 20th anniversary of the launch of the idea of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The ENP agreement was finalised in 2011, while the south and east Mediterranean were going through consequential political shifts. It went into effect in 2014, just as the tide of said political shifts of three years prior was turning.
The survey questionnaire was sent out in the autumn of 2023 and the findings came out this week, revealing the ENP’s inefficient impact on two key issues that were marked on its original blueprint: regional stability and the promotion of democracy. Equally below expectations, the findings revealed, is the progress in education. Trade integration, however, was one of the few things that made progress. The overall conclusion is that the ENP has limited impact on the agenda of cooperation.
The findings of the survey were presented in a roundtable discussion hosted on Monday by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies (ACPSS). According to Maram Diaa of the ACPSS, it was interesting to see that, overall, there were no significant discrepancies between the assessments from the north and the south/east of the Mediterranean. “Actually, experts to the north of the Mediterranean attributed the lack of efficiency of the ENP to the lack of cohesive [foreign] policy approaches by the member states of the EU,” she said.
Diaa also explained that a clear, agreed-on reason for the limited impact of the ENP — clearer in the south and east of the Mediterranean than in eastern Europe — is the lack of agreement on priorities between the EU and its ENP partners, the lack of commitment of the EU, and the lack of cohesive policy implementation in the south Mediterranean.
The EU’s ENP partners are Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Diaa explained that the policy was less effective in the east and south Mediterranean due to discrepancies in shared and contested priorities making a difference in the level of efficiency.
According to Rabha Seif Allam, a senior researcher at the ACPSS, there is no clearer indication of the shortcomings of the ENP during the past decade than its lack of impact on the war on Gaza, despite the membership of both Palestine and Israel. Actually, Allam added, the clearly unbalanced statements and positions that top EU officials expressed in the early weeks of the war, “before things started to change”, are indicative of the lack of vision for the ENP when it comes to one of its original top priorities, namely stability.
According to Amr El-Shobaky, a senior consultant, by 2014, the objectives of the EU foreign policy when it comes to the Arab region had effectively changed, with issues like democracy and human rights coming much lower on the list of imminent priorities than controlling undocumented migration and combating terrorism.
This discrepancy between the letter and the spirit of the ENP and the actual day to day foreign policy choices and decisions of the ENP, participants in the discussion agreed, requires a situation assessment and a recalibration of the objectives and tools to execute them.
Diaa said the findings of the questionnaire reveal a significant level of agreement on the need to revamp ENP objectives and mechanisms, at least partially, to make the agreement more rewarding for all the partners. The top issues decided by those who took part in the questionnaire, Diaa said, are migration, democracy and climate change. Moreover, Diaa said that the findings of the survey showed the consensual need for dialogue, especially between EU member states and countries in the south Mediterranean, to decide the path ahead.
Overall, Allam said, it is hard to avoid disappointment in the role the ENP has played in all of the key issues, especially those related to regional stability. “If one looks at the situation in Gaza, the situation in Syria or the situation in Libya, one will not find much ENP impact,” she said.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 11 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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