Europe's Mediterranean Strategy

2

Europe's Mediterranean Strategy

(essay)

Introduction

A marked asymmetry in terms of security institutions between the north and south shores of the Mediterranean seems apparent at first glance. While European integration has grown in strength and depth across the northern shore, where a dense network of security institutions is present, across the southern shore integration made little progress, if at all, and the institutional security vacuum is evident.

Over the last ten years, the European Union has widened, to include the former GDR, Austria, Finland and Sweden, and deepened, having completed the single market, achieved virtually free movement of people across its borders and adopting a single currency. Among those that adhered to the EURO are all the Mediterranean members of the European Union who succeeded in meeting the pre-requisites to join stage three of the economic and monetary union. The Mediterranean dimension of the Union may be strengthened in the not so distant future through the inclusion of Malta After freezing its application for EU membership, Malta again revived it after elections in December 1998 brought a new government to power; see, Calleya, S. “Malta's foreign policy in an enlarged European Union” in O Mundo em Portuguкs, 32, May 2002. and Cyprus. A further enhancement is more unlikely, however, since prospects for either Turkey or any of the Balkan States (with the exception of Slovenia) joining the European Union over the next ten years or so look rather slim at present.

When it comes to security, the institutional pattern is dense. Nato remains perhaps the centrepiece of European security, with its core function of collective defence and its newer but no less important peace support role. Through Nato, furthermore, the United States become an integral part of the European security and stability equation. Whilst European membership of Nato and the European Union does not entirely overlap, and one southern Mediterranean power is a member of Nato (Turkey), the function of the European Union in terms of ensuring a stable environment in the European continent, which reaches beyond its present borders, cannot be overemphasised. Indeed, and somewhat paradoxically, its role in managing potential conflicts between its present and prospective members is greater, if anything, than that of Nato. Paradoxically, since the bounds between Nato allies are built on the commitment enshrined in the North Atlantic Treaty of going to war, if necessary, to defend any other member under attack. The new Strategic Concept, in underlying the continued commitment to Article 5, stresses in fact that “it is clear that Article 5 would apply come the attack from where it may”. Shared Nato membership, however, had little effect on either Greece or Turkey when their dispute over the Aegian Sea islet was on the verge of leading to military confrontation. The European Union is developing a Common European and Defence Policy with the objective of providing the Union with military capacity, to have a stronger voice in Nato and to act when the United States considers, as in Bosnia 1991-95, that their vital interests are not at stake. With this new initiative of the European Union, that follows the materialisation of the monetary union, will consolidate the European integration process.

The South, however, provides a sharp contrast to this picture of cohesion. Both in the Maghreb and the Middle East security arrangements are sparse and little or no progress has been made towards integration. The most ambitious project, which combines elements of economic integration and security cooperation, has never actually come into being. In spite of its promising start, stemming out of the relaxation of tensions between Algeria and Morocco, the Arab Maghreb Union Created in 1985 by the Treaty of Marrakesh, the members of the Arab Maghreb Union are Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania and Tunisia. was unable to grow out of the lethargy into which it has plunged almost as it was created. The unresolved issue of the Western Sahara, the worsening situation in Algeria and, to some extent, Libya's international isolation, are the primary reasons for its virtual paralysis. In the Middle East, the picture in what concerns subregional cooperation is equally grim. The stall in the MEPP after the high hopes the Oslo breakthrough had raised took a heavy toll on the whole of the Middle East and beyond. It brought the multilateral and the bilateral tracks of the peace process to a halt, shattering the vision of a new Middle East before it ever had a chance to materialise. The Arab League never developed a real security dimension, and efforts towards integration or at least increased economic cooperation among its members have seen no real progress in recent years. As Gamal Soltan aptly notes, the balance of power approach still dominates both Arab-Israeli and Arab-Arab relations. Aliboni, R. Ammor, F. and Vasconcelos, A. Intйgration et sйcuritй dans l'йspace euro-mйditerranean (Lisbon, IEEI, 2002)

A number of efforts were made in the North-South direction to fill the existing institutional vacuum. Nato and the Western European Union until its integration in the EU had established a set of multi-bilateral dialogues with selected countries of the South, launched respectively in 1994 and 1992 under Nato's Mediterranean Initiative and the WEU's Mediterranean Group. Nato's dialogue countries are Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Mauritania, and Tunisia. The WEU's Mediterranean dialogue, launched in 1992, includes these same countries plus Algeria. These dialogues consist mainly of meetings between the relevant sections of each organisation's secretariat with the southern countries' ambassadors in Brussels. The OSCE has also set up a Mediterranean Contact Group. Egypt and Italy jointly launched the Mediterranean Forum The Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation in the Mediterranean, created in Alexandria in July 1994, although it emphasises economic, scientific and technologic cooperation, is also concerned with political dialogue. The Mediterranean Forum is formed by Algeria, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Malta, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia and Turkey. in 1994, an initiative that has survived the launching of the Euro-Mediterranean Process in Barcelona, in December 1995. The Euro-Mediterranean Process, a Franco-Spanish proposal to the EU Council, was launched during the Spanish Presidency of the EU in 1995. The EMP is currently made up of the signatories of the Barcelona Declaration: the Fifteen, and 12 Southern partners: Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Malta, Jordan, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia and Turkey. Two members of the AMU are not among the EMP: Mauritania and Libya, and Turkey, although a member of Nato, is part of the South in the EMP process. The prospects for developing some form of closer cooperation gradually evolving to its inclusion within the EMP look brighter after the UN sanctions have been suspended. The EMP is the most relevant of these initiatives by far, not only because it has a multilateral character but also because it is intended as a multilayered process, comprising a political and security, an economic and a human dimension.

It should be noted however that the EMP was launched at a time when there was solid cause for optimism regarding substantial progress in achieving peace between Israel and the Arabs. The exceedingly modest progress achieved in the political & security basket of the EMP has remained hostage to a stalled MEPP. Although the effect of the MEPP towards the progressive goal of a truly co-operative security all across the Mediterranean cannot be overemphasised, it is also true that other obstacles remain. Among them the fact that the southern partners don't feel a sense of ownership over the Process, this is due in part to the asymmetric relation inside the EMP itself. The management of the EMP by the Comission creates an asymmetry because there is no equivalent structure among the non-member partners of the Union. The Euromesco Joint Report of 1997-98 has suggested that while the Commission should retain this role, and far from suggesting the creation of a Secretariat, a `ProMed' group of civil servants from the South could be constituted to act in relation to the Commission. However this has yet to be implemented or discussed. The existing North-South asymmetry in the Mediterranean is a powerful factor in contributing to negative perceptions amongst the elites and public opinions in North Africa and Middle East. But the mutually distorted north and south perceptions are also the effect of different understandings of Security issues by political leaders and public opinions on both sides of the Mediterranean.

The perverse effect of perceptions

Security perceptions are a decisive component of Mediterranean security in the north-south and south-north direction alike. In the minds of a number of European publics, political islamism - identified with terrorism, and at its worse confusingly identified with Islam itself - tends to replace the defunct Soviet threat as the number one enemy, potential at its best. Military establishments, even though defence policies have been altered, are still geared to confront invasion. If not from the East, which is now deemed unlikely as a source of potential threat, then from the South, a closer neighbour for most southern European countries than the distant Cold War enemy. In Europe as a whole, declining demographics, in sharp contrast with rapidly increasing demographics in the Southern Mediterranean and little signs of accompanying economic and social progress that would safely accommodate the increasing pressure on labour markets, prompt fears of tidal waves of southern migrants flooding Europe in the coming years. As a combined result of high unemployment and the influence of the extreme-right (which has succeeded in `contaminating' immigration and asylum policies in a number of European countries), significant sections of the European publics tend to perceive migrations from the South, in particular from Islamic countries, as a societal threat, one that would put national identity at stake.

In the South, the post-Cold War world order is seen as unjust. The West is perceived as set towards confrontation with the Arab and the Islamic world: while apathy prevails when it comes to implementing UN Security Council resolutions concerning Israel, resolve does not fail, including the recourse to military action, whenever an Arab country such as Iraq is concerned. Notwithstanding their respective governments' position during the Gulf War, the fact remains that Arab public opinions actively condemned the war against Iraq. This was seen not as a move to prevent the unlawful annexation of Kuwait by Iraq but rather as a deliberate attack on the part of the United States and its Western allies against a powerful Arab country. A sense of betrayal developed particularly against France, for having accepted to side with the United States against the Arab people. Another example, albeit with an incomparably smaller impact, were public reactions to the creation of Eurofor and Euromarfor, generally seen as a move on the part of Europe in preparation to intervene in the South. Western inconsistencies in humanitarian or human rights related issues, are often cited as proof of consistency in upholding double standards. Prolonged inaction on the part of Europe and the United States to prevent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia were seen in the South as tolerated only because Muslims were the victims. On Arab and Muslim publics' reactions to the Bosnia crisis, see for example Ali Hallil Dessouki's chapter in Jopp, M. ed., “The Implications of the Yugoslav Crisis for Western Europe's Foreign Relations”, Chaillot Paper 17 (Paris:WEU Institute for Security Studies, October 1994). Nato's Kosovo intervention provoked mixed feelings in Arab elites. It was generally seen as a display of solidarity towards persecuted Muslims, and received the rather unexpected support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Israel too had mixed feelings, and even within the government first reactions at the outbreak of the crisis were contradictory. On a different key, it was also noted that a parallel could be established between Milosevic's deportation of the Albanians from Kosovo and the expulsion of Palestinians from Israel in 1948, which partly explains Israel's hesitant reaction to Nato's intervention. The fact that bombing failed to stop deportation, however, and especially the fact that Nato's campaign was not legally endorsed by the UN, contributed to raise fears among Arab states that the United States and Nato would take international legality into their own hands. These negative perceptions were reinforced by the Bush administration policies in relation to Sharon's government policy of destruction of the Palestine Authority. The most flagrant example of the North-South different perceptions was the reaction to the terrorist attack against New York and the Pentagon. Important sectors of public opinion in the south have shown mixed feelings, considering that the attack was the consequence of American policy of support to Israel.

Mirroring western public perceptions, radical Islamists defend policies based on identity and consider the influence of `western' ideas as a societal threat. The time has come, according to radical Islamist leaders, for complete decolonisation to reach its final stage: it is now the turn of cultural decolonisation, Burgat, F. L'Islamisme en face (Paris: La Dйcouverte, 1995). and the time for those who have fallen under the influence of the West to be intellectually and ideologically banished.

Perverse effects are of course aggravated by the fact that governments' perceptions are not, especially in the South, necessarily attuned with public opinions or the main currents within the intellectual elites. More often than not, governments are closer to their European and western counterparts than to their own domestic constituencies. As a consequence, more so perhaps than in Europe, the internal discourse of southern governments is at odds with their discourse and sometimes even their stances in international fora. During the Gulf War, for example, mounting public pressure in favour of Iraq led king Hassan to affirm that the sole reason for the presence of Moroccan troops on the US-led coalition was the protection of the holy shrines in Saudi Arabia. It would be a gross mistake however to discard public opinions in the South on the grounds those governments are authoritarian anyway and hold a firm grip on power. Even where such is the case at present, regimes can not afford to discount domestic constituencies' altogether, and indeed do not. And civil societies, although generally weak at present, are becoming stronger and keener on making their voice heard. The awareness of the discrepancy between the views of governments and the feelings of public opinions and the most part of intellectual elites is essential for the success of any European initiative towards the Mediterranean dealing with security and defence.

Nato's strategic concept

Generally speaking, the post-Cold War strategic thinking of Nato countries has evolved from the pre-eminence of territorial defence to the predominance of security interests. Concomitantly, the dominant concern is the management of crises and conflicts that are deemed to put at stake relevant security interests within the Euro-Atlantic area.

Nato's 50^th anniversary Washington Summit approved a new strategic document which enumerates the potential risks the Alliance should brace itself to confront in the coming years. The Mediterranean, or at least parts of it, is undoubtedly among the “peripheral regions” where potential risks to Nato's security are bound to originate. There is no common definition of the Mediterranean among Nato members, however. While for Europeans the Mediterranean means the Maghreb, primarily, and the Middle East (the Near East, rather), the United States have a broader notion that extends to the Middle East and the Gulf, and the Maghreb is seen as a sort of pathway to that core region. Security concerns in such “peripheral regions” include proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, delivery means and warheads alike, terrorism, and the disruption of energy flows. Instability caused by the uncontrolled movement of large numbers of displaced persons (i.e. refugees and illegal migrants) is also included. In the specific context of the Mediterranean, concerns with the rise of radical political Islamism, although not specifically mentioned, are obviously implicit as an aggravating factor of any such potential risks. After September 11, the United States defined terrorism not only as a core threat to theirs and their allies domestic and external security, but also as the organising factor of the international order. Many southern countries, that not only consider political Islamism as their main threat, also tend to confound a significant part of the oposition with terrorist groups, welcomed this definition. A dangerous amalgam also present in several western capitals. The most recent and complete example of the risks underpinning this is Sharon's policy.

A hard look at security risks across the Mediterranean, however, commands a number of obvious conclusions:

There is no credible direct military threat against Europe originating in the Mediterranean.

Existing security problems are South-South, both inter- and intra-state alike (e.g. Middle East; Algeria).

Although the primary targets of both are in the South, spill-overs from WMD proliferation and terrorism may affect Europe (e.g. Lampedusa, 1986; Paris, 1995), and to some extent this leads to a `Europeanisation' of Mediterranean issues.

Radical islamism in and as of itself does not represent a threat to Europe; again, the driver of such movements is internal, and they aim primarily at overtaking the state.

Why then is there a perceived `threat from the South'? Terrorist activities are prominent among the reasons that account for this perception. In recent years terrorist acts have caused victims on both shores of the Mediterranean. Although terrorism is a grave threat, as it was made clear with the September 11 attacks, its effects are also felt strongly within the countries of South.

Similarly, proliferation is primarily linked to attempts at regional hegemony and existing Arab-Israeli tensions. Aside from Israel, it is thought that Libya's missiles could be launched at a maximum range of some 550 km, which puts their Southern neighbours primarily within range. See Strategic Exposure: Proliferation around the Mediterranean (Santa Monica: Rand, 1998) and Delpeche, T. “The Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Mediterranean” in A European Strategic Concept for the Mediterranean (IEEI, to be published).

Disruption of energy flows could indeed affect Europe. If in the case of oil supplies channelled through the Mediterranean basin, including from the Gulf, alternative sources could be found, and the impact would primarily be felt rather on the price of oil than on its availability. Gas poses a different problem in countries that rely primarily on pipeline supplies. France and Italy rely heavily on gas supplies from Algeria, and so do Spain and Portugal. In all, North African gas accounts for some 25% of the EU's present gas consumption, a proportion likely to increase in the near future. Algeria is one of the main suppliers, linked to Southern Europe through two main pipelines (respectively through Tunisia in the case of Italy, and Morocco in the case of Spain and Portugal). Sabotage attempts of both these pipelines by armed Islamist insurgents have been reported in 1996 and 1997 The only case of major disruption to gas supplies (in 1998, when the supply to Italy was stopped for three days), however, was attributed to a technical problem. Suspicions of a terrorist attack on the pipeline were aired but never proven.. Currently, the main vulnerability of gas supplies to Europe is primarily a result of the open confrontation between radical Islamist factions and the military power in Algeria. The threat of disruption of gas supplies should not be overemphasised, however. Any Algerian government, whatever its political allegiance, has a major interest in securing the undisrupted flow of energy which is by far its main source of revenue. And Libya's `rogue state' status has certainly not stopped the continuous flow of its gas and oil supplies mainly into Europe.

The root causes of the major problems confronting southern countries are mainly domestic. They result from the failure to address the situation that permits radical Islamism to flourish as the sole apparent alternative to the military-backed regime. Although in varying, less acute degrees this same pattern - the stifling of pro-democracy, non-violent political opponents - exists in other countries of the South. As a result, the most extreme forms of opposition, including the wholesale recourse to violence and terrorism, tend to prevail. It should be borne in mind that political Islamism is an identity-based nationalistic current. It emerged towards the end of the 1980s against the backdrop of a perceived loss of political legitimacy of existing regimes in the face of mounting economic and social crises that they had failed to prevent or to adequately address. And if the rejection of `western' values consistent with their unquestionably totalitarian character of its radical varieties is obvious, it would be a mistake to see such movements as some kind of new `anti-western international'. Radical Islamist movements are first and foremost nationalistic. This is clearly illustrated, for example, by the uncompromising pro-Morocco attitude of Moroccan Islamists as far as the Western Sahara question is concerned. The totalitarian leanings of radical Islamist movements constitute first and foremost a threat against the societies that they wish to control through the power of the (theocratic) state. It is not possible to counter their influence unless economic measures are combined with political reform that will allow for better governance. In particular, through freedom of thought and expression, and encouraging civil societies to freely and actively participate in the political life of their countries. Islamist groups such as Al'Qaida, with a powerful base in Saudi Arabia and secondarily in Egypt, are a minority. Therefore, they should be clearly diferentiated from those with an essentially national base.

Migration is not a security problem, even in the softer realms, and should indeed be decisively decoupled from security concerns. Migrations originating in the Maghreb have obviously been the combined result of poorly absorbent labour markets in Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria, while Europe needed cheap labour for its own development. In spite of the fact that the migratory pressures have not diminished in the South, the European Union has effectively shielded itself from such pressures. The anticipated huge numbers of North Africans pouring into Europe failed to materialise. According to the OECD, the total Maghrebi migrant population in Europe rose from 1.761 to 2.070 million between 1983 and 1995, i.e. over more than ten years. The perception of migrations as a societal threat is primarily a result of the demagogic and persistent campaign of extreme-right movements in Europe, who mistakenly points to migrants as the main threat to employment of nationals and a grave menace to their national identity. Indeed, considering migration as a security concern is a legitimisation of the extremist rhetoric of such right-wing parties as the French Front National, or other populist movements with special incidence in Belgium, Holand, Austria and Italy (besides France), recently with increased presence in Europe.

Refugees and asylum-seekers are a political problem that should be adequately addressed. In 2001 more than 368,000 asylum seekers applied across the EU Fifteen. Their vast majority, however, come from the Balkans and Turkey, in the latter case as a result of the Kurdish issue, and not from North Africa or the Middle East. Even the prolonged situation of political violence in Algeria has failed to produce asylum-seekers, predictably in France, in any significant proportion. As the Kosovo crisis has potently illustrated, the issue to be addressed is not primarily that of refugees as such, but rather the causes that force people out of their country. There lies, in the cause, not in the consequence, the true security dimension of the refugee problem.

The prevailing south-south dimension

The eminently south-south or even domestic nature of Mediterranean issues is illustrated both by the existing crises and conflicts in the region as well as by security concerns of southern Mediterranean countries themselves. As far as the latter are concerned, with the possible exception of Israel (and even there things are changing), the `internal threat' plays a prominent part. Algeria represents the most extreme case at present of this trend, which primarily accounts for the growth of military expenditure in these last few years.

Aside from the Arab-Israeli conflict (the status of Palestine, and Israel's occupation of parts of Syria and Lebanon), the question of the Western Sahara, opposing Morocco to the Polisario Front backed by Algeria, is typical of the south-south nature of most existing security issues. The main exception to this rule is to be found in the tensions between Turkey, a member of Nato, and Syria, Iraq and Iran especially over the Kurdish question. In a Nato context, these should be regarded as north-south issues, they should also be seen as such by the EU in consequence of the acceptance of Turkey as a candidate to the Union. By virtue of Turkey's European Union future membership, the Union would have borders on the Middle East and the Gulf.

All initiatives taken in regard to Mediterranean security, including Nato's Mediterranean Initiative, meet with one common and insurmountable difficulty. While these dialogues are North-South, and their confidence-building dimension is therefore strictly confined to the North-South and to a lesser extent the South-North direction, the existing security problems are to a vast extent South-South. Furthermore, their format, as noted above, is multi-bilateral, i.e. Nato talks to each individual southern Mediterranean country. There is not much that can be achieved in terms of cooperative security, since no form of partnership or association is offered. The usefulness of these dialogues should not be discarded, however, at the level of information-sharing (although it is unclear what exactly has been shared so far) which is instrumental in changing mutually existing negative perceptions. This is unquestionably a major element in building confidence, but again not in the South-South direction where it is most needed. Common security concerns, such as proliferation, are currently not included in the dialogue. There is little chance they will be while Israel, which is one Nato's dialogue countries, fails to accept arms control mechanisms.

The possibility of transforming Nato's Mediterranean Initiative in a similar mechanism to its Partnership for Peace has been aired. But the organisation's strategic concept seems to play down any significant upgrade of the existing dialogues at least for the time being. It merely states that “The Alliance is committed to developing progressively the political, civil and military aspects of the dialogue with the aim of achieving closer cooperation with, and more active involvement by countries, that are partners in this dialogue.” The document is slightly less cautious in mentioning another element which can provide an important counter-measure to the perception that Nato is preparing to confront the South, namely their taking part in Nato military exercises. “The participation of southern Mediterranean countries in manoeuvres in the Mediterranean together with Allied military forces” should, according to the document approved in Washington, “become the rule rather than the exception.”

The dificultys regarding a significant upgrade of its Mediterranean Initiative is linked to two factors. First, the negative attitude towards Nato harboured by southern Mediterranean publics. Secondly, the current prevalence of authoritarian regimes in the southern shores of the Mediterranean that would prevent political convergence between the full membership of such a Mediterranean Partnership, unlike what happens with most of its current PfP partners.

Military cooperation, in its utmost concrete form, was intensified with southern Mediterranean countries in recent years, with Egypt, Jordan and Morocco's participation in Nato-led Ifor/Sfor operations in Bosnia. Beyond the Mediterranean basin, the UAE has contributed 150 men and a refugee camp within Operation Allied Harbour in Albania.

The Euro-Mediterranean Partnership

Although the EMP security dialogue is multilateral, it encounters a similar obstacle to Nato's dialogue in confronting security problems in the Mediterranean. Syria and Lebanon refuse to discuss security in any official institutional framework where Israel also participates.

The confidence-building role of the EMP is therefore severely curtailed, although the mere fact that dialogue was indeed pursued even if the MEPP collapsed may be regarded as an achievement in itself. The EMP is in fact the sole multilateral Mediterranean framework in which a consistent, high-level dialogue in which Israel and a significant number of Arab countries take part has been pursued. The Senior Officials in charge of the Barcelona Process have had enormous difficulties in launching some confidence-building measures. In fact, only very few were implemented, such as a joint initiative on the part of Egypt and Italy for sea-rescue operations. At the civil society level, the EuroMeSCo network of foreign policy institutes from the EMP countries launched in 1993 and enlarged to the full EMP participation in 1996 is also tackling both soft and hard security issues. Syria and Lebanon, however, have blocked more ambitious confidence-building measures so far and due to the present situation in the Israel Palestinian conflict the EMP decision to approve a Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability failed till now. The Charter was conceived as a functional instrument for the implementation of the principles of the Barcelona Declaration See, Aliboni, R. “Building Blocks for the Euro-Med Charter on Peace and Stability” (EuroMeSCo Working Paper 7, IEEI, January 2000).. In the last few years the Senior Officials were able to produce a set of guidelines and topics to be contemplated in the Charter. These include partnership-building measures, as well as improving cooperation among neighbours, through the gradual establishment of a network of subregional cooperation agreements and cross-border projects, crisis-management and post-conflict rehabilitation. These measures are expected to develop, at a later stage, into “joint action modalities”. It is interesting to note that much effort went into `decoupling' progress towards the adoption of the Charter from the MEPP. Without a solution to the present crises there will not be either a Charter or any form of political co-operation on the EMP.

The European Union's common Mediterranean strategy

In accordance with the enhanced foreign and security policy dimension contemplated in the Amsterdam Treaty, the Vienna European Council has decided to devise a common strategy for four areas which rank high in the Union's foreign policy priorities: Russia, the Ukraine, the Western Balkans and the Mediterranean. A common strategy for Russia was indeed approved by the Cologne European Council. The Cologne Council reiterated the decision taken in Vienna to adopt a common strategy for the Ukraine, South-East Europe and the Mediterranean. The `common strategy', which provides for decision making on a majority basis, was added to the array of CFSP instruments in the Amsterdam Treaty. It is likely that Portugal, who will hold the EU presidency in the first half of 2000, will press for the adoption of the Mediterranean common strategy ahead of the French presidency, in the second half of the year. In the case of the Mediterranean, the common strategy devised by the Fifteen will integrate the acquis and the furtherance of the Barcelona process, which will form the basis of its more long-term approach. At the same time, however, it should include a blueprint for those issues that require both long- and short-term action, such as the MEPP or the Algerian crisis. As far as security in the Mediterranean is concerned, however, the European Union, especially in light of its declared commitment to a stronger defence dimension while at the same time building stronger ties with Nato, is well advised to bring its own relations with the United States into the picture.

While transatlantic solidarity remains the core foundation of European security, the same kind of solidarity can not automatically be transposed to Mediterranean security as a whole. Marked differences in policy orientation toward Israel attest this fact. As noted above, Europeans and Americans differ on the very geographical definition of the Mediterranean region and main areas of concern are also not the same. The European Union now has a definition of the Mediterranean that coincides with the southern membership of the EMP (plus Libya), and sees it primarily as the meeting point between the Arab-Islamic and the European world. The Maghreb is an area in its own right, and an important one for Europe.

The differences in approach and in priorities have led some to suggest a schematic division of labour between Europe and the United States in the Mediterranean, along geographic and priority action lines. Europe should take care of the Maghreb, where social and economic issues are the main challenge to be confronted. The United States should take care of the Middle East on their own where security issues prevail and the effects of collapse of the MEPP are more hardly felt. As for the Gulf, the United States should take the lead while allowing Europe to play a supporting role and carry a fairer share of the burden. American analysts contend that this would suit the EU, whose hesitations in foreign and security policy make it a weak power player, but do not affect its strong foreign economic policy role. The same analysts also contend that would suit the United States, who see themselves as the sole real player in the Middle East backed by a credible military presence. On the `division of labour' between the European Union and the United States, see Gompert, D. and Stephen Larrabee, F. eds., America and Europe: A Partnership for a New Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/Rand).

This is unacceptable to Europe, not least because the Middle East is now a part of the EMP. Israel is indeed crucial to this Euro-American divergence. The United States regard Israel's security problems as its own. For Europe, the Arab-Israeli dispute is a south-south issue.

There is no question that the United States remains a Mediterranean power, as much as a European power, as far as security and defence issues are concerned. This should be fully appreciated by the European Union. This is not to say that Nato should be enlarged to the South, but merely to say that all those involved stand to benefit from a Mediterranean dialogue between the European Union and the United States. It is doubtful, however, that Nato should be the adequate framework for this dialogue. Mediterranean issues of concern to both Europe and the United States clearly transcend the realm of security. On the other hand, although it may increasingly tend to do so, the European Union as such is not a part of Nato. The Transatlantic Dialogue, where a comprehensive approach, including political and economic issues may be included together with security, seems to be the right forum for such a dialogue to bear all its potential fruits.

One final consideration seems in order, regarding the interplay of external and regional actors in any given area and in this particular region especially suited to the application of the notion of cooperative security. Indeed, common security concerns and potential risks clearly transcend threats in their ordinary definition. Countries across the Mediterranean, in the Maghreb and the Middle East alike, should be treated as full partners in any security arrangements in which they are concerned. Taking the Southern countries on board as full partners is indeed the aim of the Barcelona process. Similarly, it is a pre-condition for the success of any Mediterranean initiative involving the United States. It should be noted, furthermore, that because they are indeed committed to the success of the EMP, Europeans are bound to increasingly take into account the points of view of their Southern partners and engage into consultations with them in the case of any contingency involving the Mediterranean. This perspective should be at the heart of the European Defence Policy towards the Mediterranean.

Endnotes