1

2

From security to economy and back?

(essay)

Introduction

There have been two attempts by the EC/EU to conceive of the Mediterranean as a region. The first came in the early 1970s, when the EC launched the Global Mediterranean Policy (GMP). In it, Mediterranean non-member countries were seen as being part of the same region and thus deserving a similar treatment. There was little attempt, however, to `construct' a region. Rather, the existence of similarities was assumed. With the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), adopted in 1995, the EU was more conscious of the need to foster co-operation and mutual knowledge in order to achieve a status of shared values and we-feeling. It therefore suggested a broad framework for consultation and debate on a long list of topics. The two initiatives have several features in common, besides approaching the Mediterranean as a de facto region or a region-to-be. First, both sprung from security concerns. In both cases, there was a worsening of security perceptions concerned centred on the Mediterranean, which preceded and accompanied the debate about launching a new initiative. Second, both the GMP and the EMP have relied on economic instruments to defuse security challenges. Whereas this is predominantly so for the GMP, the EMP maintains an emphasis on economic agreements as a key component of the security architecture, in spite of some recent changes in 2001. Therefore, the EC/EU has consistently shown a `civilian power' attitude towards the Mediterranean. As I am going to show in Section 2, the attempts to construct a security region have passed through a strong economic component and a reliance on dialogue. This is well captured by the approach suggested by Adler and Crawford (A&C).

The paradigm enshrined in the European initiatives has, however, shown a mixed pattern. On the one hand, as A&C suggest, the OSCE model has affected the structure of the EMP. On the other, that model does not account for the economic imprint of both initiatives. Rather, the `economic solution to security concerns' paradigm resembles the EC/EU model. This impression is confirmed if we analyse the type of economic approach adopted in the GMP and the EMP. The GMP reflected the belief in the importance of economies of scale and public money to spark economic development and citizens' welfare. The EMP reflects a neoliberal approach instead, pleading as it does in favour of market economies, competition and liberalisation. This raises another issue, namely the relationship between the liberal approach enshrined in the EMP and the construction of a security community. Moreover, the analysis of the values embodied within the EMP leaves open the question of how those values are meant to travel across the Mediterranean. What are the transmission belts within the EMP that foster socialisation to the values that it embodies? Recent contributions about communication and persuasion (e.g. Risse, Ropp, Sikkink 1999; Checkel 2001) might contribute to the analysis of these mechanisms. Section 3 will be devoted to the analysis of the values that permeate the EMP and will address the possible mechanisms for their transmission.

The GMP and the EMP

In the periods before the formulation of the GMP and the EMP, perceptions of EC/EU governments and public opinion towards Mediterranean issues worsened, as a `Mediterranean problem' was perceived to emerge. This trend is more easily captured if we abandon the traditional approaches to security and focus on the possibility that any issue can move along a “spectrum ranging from nonpoliticized (meaning the state does not deal with it and it is not in any other way made an issue of public debate and decision) through politicized (meaning the issue is part of public policy, requiring government decision and resource allocations or, more rarely, some other form of communal governance) to securitized (meaning the issue is presented as an existential threat, requiring emergency measures and justifying actions outside the normal bounds of political procedure).” (Buzan, Wжver, de Wilde 1998, 23-24). Therefore, if we focus on public debates and on the formulation of public policies and of public policies about security threats, we see that prior to the formulation of European initiatives, there is an increase in attention about issues related to the Mediterranean. The translation of security concerns into a policy initiative is particularly clear for the EMP. It emerges from the preparatory documents and from the declarations adopted, which reflect and reinforce the media opinion. In the case of the GMP, it is only when the archives are finally opened that we will be able to conclusively demonstrate the connection between security and policy making. For the time being, the rigid separation between the EEC and the EPC frameworks, as well as the difficulties in gathering grey material of that period, leaves us with little choice but to mainly induce it from the media and from documents referring to specific issues.

In the 1970s, terrorism and oil were the two new challenges which attracted the attention of member states, public opinion and the Commission. Terrorism was on the rise everywhere in the world Between 1968 and 1972, terroristic attacks (all kinds of) represented in percentage on the totality of violent episodes:

- 1968: 18%

- 1969: 20%

- 1970: 30%

- 1971: 38%

- 1972: 49%

(here would be better a table?)

Source: Carrиre and Valat-Morio (1973, 48). and Europe in particular became, from the end of the 1960s onwards, “the most active terrorist environment in the world” (Pluchinsky 1982, 40). Terrorism first spilled over Europe from the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1970, although the phenomenon of Arab-Palestinian terrorism had begun to take shape in 1968 (cf. Cooley 1997, 298). An early editorial of Le Monde well representes the coverage in the media. For the period 1968-1972, two newspapers were examined, Le Monde and Corriere della Sera. The method chosen was to focus mainly on the reactions and op-eds after terrorist attacks. It asked, after the first El Al hijacking in 1968, whether “les Algйriens n'ont pas dйcidй de renouer avec la grande tradition des pirates barbaresques” and make the Mediterranean skies as insecure as Mediterranean seas in the past centuries (Le Monde, 26.VII.1968). After September 1970, the Europeans began to cooperate, at times also with the US and Israel, in order to counter the phenomenon. The peak of these efforts at cooperation occurred after the terroristic attacks in Munich in 1972. Counterterrorism forces were created in all member states. Measures were taken to prevent immigrants' networks from becoming `the seedbed of terrorism.' For instance, in Germany, the presence on the territory of more than 50.000 Arabs lended credibility to the argument that the terrorist commandos, coming from abroad, found material and immaterial support on the ground. Therefore, the measures against the Arab residents were tightened and several people expulsed in such a way that French groups spoke of an Israeli infiltration of German police identifying Arabs with terroristic connections (Le Monde, 19.IX.1972). In Italy too, the attack of the Olympic Games had a large echo in the parliamentary debate, during which all ministers intervened and emphasized the link between terrorism and the threat to international and domestic order (Atti parlamentari, Senato della Repubblica, VI Legislatura, 38 seduta, 8.X.1972, pp.1858 ss.). At the European level, following a proposal of German minister of Foreign Affairs Scheel, the Six plus the applicant countries (Denmark, Ireland, Norway and Great Britain) addressed the issue in the EPC framework. On the meetings of September 12 and 21, 1972, diplomats adopted a common declaration against terrorism and all forms of retaliation and prepared the draft of a convention against terrorism to be brought to the UN. After a few years of politicisation and following Munich, terrorism emanating from the Arab-Israeli conflict was addressed as a matter of national security.

Oil followed a similar pattern and it became “a matter of national security” (Lieber 1976, 15) with the oil shock in November 1973. However, European dependence on Arab oil had already been perceived. In 1970, European heavy relience on oil in 1970 was a fact that grew from a long history of European mismanagement of energy sources (Lieber 1976, 3-4). At that point, imports (excluding movements in the European area) as percentage of supply was 96.3%, which meant that almost the whole supply came from abroad (OECD 1973, 68). Moreover, imports increasingly came from the Arab oil producing countries. The rise of North Africa as a supplier is striking. Within a decade it passed from supplying Europe 8,1 million tons in 1960, to 76,2 in 1965, to 193,7 in 1970 (idem). In 1973, the percentage of Arab oil as a percentage of the total of imported oil was 73,2%. Maull 1976, 116, from UN Statistical Papers, Series J. In a nutshell, not only was EC economic development largely dependent on oil and on imported oil, but more precisely it was dependent on oil imported from the Arab countries. However, it was not a good period for being dependent on Arab oil. The threats to oil supplies were increasingly becoming substantial, for a whole variety of reasons. Within the EC, at the beginning of the 1970s, the issue became a matter of debate at the governmental level, although it was impossibile to agree on a single approach. The EC Commission was instructed to carry out some studies and suggest policy proposals, which it did in a series of documents dating December 1968, October 1972 and April 1973. EC Commission, “First Guidelines for a Community Energy Policy” (December 18, 1968), Supplement to Bulletin of the European Communities, n.12; idem, “Necessary Progress in Comunity Energy Policy” (Communication to the Council, October 13, 1972), Supplement to Bulletin of the European Communities, n.11; idem, “Guidelines and Priority Actions Under the Community Energy Policy” (Communication to the Council, April 27, 1973), Supplement to Bulletin of the European Communities, n.6. In them, the Commission summarised the policy options, although this further highlighted the disagreement among the Europeans (Lieber 1976, 6-7). The dilemma was between cheap or secure oil, and if the choice was to fall on the latter, on how to secure it - through cooperation with the US (cartel of consumers) or with the oil producing countries? While cooperation with the US was barred by France, the Europeans saw very clearly the importance of maintaining good relations with the Arabs.

While the Mediterranean (and especially the Arab countries) presented the Europeans with two new problems at the beginning of the 1970s, in the 1990s there were three new problems: migrations, Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Terrorism acquired a new momentum in connection with Islamic fundamentalism. Apart from the attacks in France in August 1995, however, the issue remained more at the level of a possibility rather than actual conflict between terrorists and European states. Islamic fundamentalism represented a new and broader challenge than terrorist attacks. Although the phenomenon had risen in importance already at the end of the 1970s, it became politically relevant for European policy making only after the end of the Cold War, when several opinion-makers emphasised its role in the `new world' (e.g. Huntington 1993). In this perspective, the crisis into which Algeria plunged in 1992 demonstrated the potential destabilisation of radical Islam. The importance of Algeria as a possible nightmare scenario last for long. See for instance the letter addressed to Kinkel on the 21<sup>st</sup> of October 1994, when Germany had the Presidency of the EU, by Juppй and Solana. In it, they compared the relatively encouraging to situation in the Machrek to the gloomy one in the Maghreb, where Islamic fundamentalism risked to `expand from Algeria to the neighbours countries.'

Migration was a key issue in European perceptions of the Mediterranean in the early 1990s. Although the history of migrations across the Mediterranean is very long, this period witnessed a worsening of European perceptions mainly because of the increased visibility of migrants. In Northern European countries, migrant inflows actually diminished, but the visibility of the residents increased, as well as the social problems which arose as societies (and no longer economies) struggled to accommodate the `new' settlers and to reject undocumented migrants (Hargreaves 1995, 18-19). In Southern Europe, immigration was a relative novelty (Montanari and Cortese 1993, 218-23; King 2000, 3). Therefore, although the percentage of both flows and stocks of residents on the total of the population was much less in Southern European countries than in traditional receiving countries, While in 1990 the stock of foreign population in Italy was 1.37% in proportion to total population and in Spain 1.06%, in Germany it was 8.2% and in Belgium 9.1% (Venturini 1994, 28). Southern Europe experienced a revolution in its traditional pattern of population flows and had to address for the first time issues linked to immigration. Therefore, for different reasons, in most European countries migration became a problem in the early 1990s and given that a large share of immigrants came from Southern Mediterranean countries, the Mediterranean was problematised in a similar way, at times being even framed as a security issue (Huysmans 1995, 59).

There are several indications of how these perceived problems affected the formulation of the EMP initiative. In this case, we can rely on preparatory documents. Especially so since 1992, they converge on a perception of the Mediterranean as a security challenge. The Commission highlighted the risks that “political instability, rapid population growth, large movements of population and high unemployment,” particularly in the Maghreb countries, posed to regional security. “From the Single Act to Maastrich and beyond”, COM (92) 2000, 11.II.1992, 15. It repeated them in the same form when pleading for a partnership with the Maghreb countries. “The Future of Relations between the Community and the Maghreb”, SEC(92) 401 final, 30.V.1992, 4. It emphasised them after the idea of a Euro-Med Partnership had taken hold. In this last document, the Commission openly declares that the main objective of the future initiative should be the achievement of a region of peace and stability. “Una Politica Mediterranea piщ incisiva per l'Unione europea: instaurazione di un nuovo Partenariato Euromediterraneo,” COM(94) 427 def., 19.X.1994, 8. The same leitmotiv was emphasised by the member states. For instance, the Conclusions of the European Council in Lisbon, on June 1992, indicated mass migrations, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and drug trafficking as the key challenges to security and stability in the area. Spain, whose contribution to the launching of the EMP was crucial, consistently pointed to the security problems of the region. For instance, at the beginning of 1992, in the perspective of a Euro-Maghreb Partnership, Spain described the Maghreb as a `time bomb' that is up to Europe to diffuse. The document was requested by the Council, in February. See Actividades, Textos y Documentos de la Politica Exterior Espaсola, 1992, p.877. Similarly, in its contribution to the debate of 19.XI.1994, Spain indicated that the main objective of European policy towards the Mediterranean was to create a shared area of peace and security. The prospect of economic profits was at times indicated, but in the majority of cases, it was accompanied by an emphasis on the need for development of the markets of Mediterranean non members or by the importance of building an economic bloc. There was no serious attempt to support the view that the Mediterranean markets could yield vast economic profits.

Therefore, with less confidence for the GMP and with more for the EMP, I suggest that the main trigger for developing a common initiative for the Mediterranean in both occasions consisted of security concerns. This finding is consistent with the approach developed by A&C. While they focused only on the EMP, the same is also valid, in my opinion, for the GMP. Contra, among others, Peters (2002).

…to economy…

There is little need to insist on the importance of economic instruments that, as a consequence of security concerns, the EC/EU developed and adopted in its relations with the Mediterranean non-members. Both in the GMP and in the EMP, they were complemented with social and political provisions, more so in the EMP than in the GMP. However, even the EMP maintained a strong economic imprint.

The core elements of the GMP consisted of trade, aid, and a few social provisions. The social provisions included in the Co-operation Agreements applied to the Maghreb countries and aimed at protecting migrant workers in Western Europe, although they were limited to forbidding discrimination and introducing social security measures to protect them. The aid component was enshrined in the Financial Protocols. The key part of the Global Mediterranean Policy consisted however of the Co-operation Agreements that were offered to Mediterranean countries. Greece and Turkey had a previously negotiated Association Agreement. Malta and Cyprus negotiated in this period Association Agreements of limited duration, later renewed. Their main purpose was to guarantee free access to industrial goods produced in the Mediterranean non-members, plus some agricultural concessions. The Mediterranean countries in fact maintained their tariff barriers. The rationale of these agreements lay in the attempt to provide the opportunity for economies of scale for the Mediterranean producers, while sheltering their fledgling industries from the competition of more mature European producers. I am not tackling here the Euro-Arab Dialogue, which was launched shortly afterwards. In it, economic factors represented a security concern, thus fusing the two domains into a single enterprise. However, this was also at the origins of the poor results that the dialogue achieved. Moreover, the geographical scope was different from the GMP and the EMP.

The second substantial initiative of European foreign policy towards the Mediterranean came only much later, namely in 1995, with the launching of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership. This new initiative had been foreshadowed by the adoption in 1990 of the Renovated Mediterranean Policy, aiming at reinvigorating relations with the Mediterranean countries. However, the Euro-Med Partnership brought Euro-Mediterranean relations onto a superior level altogether, calling for a real updating of the relations with what were now called the `Mediterranean partners.' One of its main `revolutionary' changes consisted of a dramatic broadening of the agenda of the topics on which the 27 participating states could have developed forms of cooperation, as expressed by the three `volets' of the Declaration of adopted in Barcelona, on November 1995. The economic volet, however, maintained a priviledged positon over the other two.

Two examples serve to demonstate this. First, not only were the economic aspects of the Euro-Med Partnership developed in the multilateral framework addressed in the Declaration, but they also monopolised the bilateral relations between the EU and the single Mediterranean countries, via the negotiations for the new generation of agreements, now called Euro-Mediterranean Agreements. The conclusion of these agreements is meant to lead to the creation of a free trade area, thanks to the abolition of the main tariff and non tariff barriers sheltering Mediterranean partners' markets. Therefore, the whole framework represents a project of gigantic reform of Mediterranean economies. Second, the goal of shared prosperity is supported by the MEDA programme, which is designed to support the social and economic transition expected from the Mediterranean countries. Here again, the economic aspects overwhelm the social (and political) elements of the project. Funds for structural adjustment, economic transition and development of the private sector consume around 45% of the overall amount. The rest is spent in technical cooperation and classical development projects, half of which again is related to improvement of services and support for the from agricultural to industrial economy. See for instance Commission of the EC, “Report from the Commission to the Council and the European Parliament. Annual report of the Meda programme 2000,” Brussels, COM(2001). The `Eurowording' (such as `environmental projects') should not conceal this fact.

On the contrary, the security `volet' of the EMP has given birth to initiatives whose impact, for the time being, is comparatively limited. The Review undertaken by the Commission for 2001 is particularly grim. It lists the attempt to coordinate actions falling in the domain of the first `volet,' EuroMeSCo (the Euro-Mediterranean Study Commission), training and information for diplomats carried out in Malta, civil protection and a human rights programme. European Commission, “The Barcelona Process. The Europe-Mediterranean partnership. 2001 Review,” 2001, p.13-14. The human rights programme is in fact the EIDHR initiative of the EU, which goes well beyond the Mediterranean geographical scope. In fact, there is more to it than tends to be acknowledged. Since the early days of the EMP, the participants have strived to produce a Euro-Mediterranean Charter for Peace and Stability. It lists a series of topics which would facilitate cooperation and/or represent items to be debated and developed. In fact, the Charter would resemble, albeit in a lower-key, the Stability Pact in Europe established by the EU within the OSCE (Aliboni 1999, 137-38). However, the progress on the Charter stopped, in spite of the French interest in it, because of the Intifada in 2000, as well as the reluctances of several partners to pursue it. The original plan was to launch the document at the Marseille Conference in November 2000, but progress on the Charter ground to a halt at this very meeting. Were the Arab-Israeli problem to be solved, the project would be taken up again. However, other problems would remain, as the CBMs that the Charter would imply would go for instance to the heart of the pending border disputes between Mediterranean partners.

…and back to security?

After the disappointment of the Charter, a different approach has come to the fore, justifying the question whether Euro-Mediterranean relations have returned to security. The security approach that is now prevailing covers the issues that have long been labelled in Eurospeak as `justice and home affairs.' This trend started to emerge in October 1999, but it gathered momentum after 2001 when progress on the Charter reached a cul de sac, and after the terroristic attacks of 9/11. The first relevant mention of a development in this direction came with the CFSP Strategy for the Mediterranean, the aim of which was to indicate the key objectives of the EU member states in the area. It was approved in June 2000. Common Strategy of the European Council of 19 June 2000 on the Mediterranean Region, 2000/458/CFSP. Although it largely reflected the Barcelona Declaration, it also mentioned areas in which the EU had developed common competences not enshrined in the Barcelona document. A first area mentioned was the European policy on security and defence. A second, more substantial mention referred to justice and home affairs, listing as specific initiatives the promotion of transparency and correspondences of legal systems, the fight against organised crime and drug trafficking, migration (both from the point of view of just treatement and social integration of legal migrants, the fight against human trafficking and illegal immigration) and the fight against terrorism. The issue was taken up again in the Conclusions of the Marseilles Conference, in November 2000, which recommended the concerted preparation of a regional programme in the field of Justice and Home Affairs.

These inputs led to two developments. First, since the beginning of 2001, the meetings of Senior Officials on Political and Security Questions developed a new format, tackling good governance practices and human rights on the basis of voluntary presentations by both European member states and Mediterranean partner countries. This trend has relented, if not completely dried up since 9/11. Second, their work has been paralleled by the meetings of Senior Officials on Justice and Home Affairs, whose agenda began to affect the agenda also of Senior Officials on Political and Security Questions. Since April-May 2001, the field of Justice and Home Affairs has become one of the main domains of activities of the EMP. Since 9/11, its relevance has been greatly increased, as EMP partners chose to address the fight against terrorism mainly as a matter of judicial cooperation, fight against money laundring, etc.. An ad hoc working group on Terrorism was created. In Valencia, in April 2002, EMP partners approved a Framework Document which, in spite of falling short of a Programme, codifies this shift from an approach based on `hard' security, such as the Charter represented, to a more `soft' interpretation of security challenges. The Document embodies the topics raised in the Mediterranean strategy, under the cumbersome title of `home affairs' due to Southern sensitivities.' For the time being, the exact title is “Regional cooperation programme in the field of justice, in combating drugs, organised crime and terrorism as well as cooperation in the treatment of issues relating to the social integration of migrants, migration and movement of people”.

Therefore, a brief historical survey of the initiatives governing Euro-Mediterranean relations reveals that both the GMP and the EMP have sprung from security concerns, to which they responded with mainly economic means. The EMP has included a security component.

Its `hard' part has not led to any substantial development, while the more recent `soft' approach seems to be more promising, especially so after the attacks of 9/11. By linking issues belonging to the first and to the third `volet,' the debate about Justice and Home Affairs might be considered as a true novelty in Euro-Mediterranean relations in matters of security.

What values? What transmission belts?

What then can be said on the basis of the developments just outlined? What does it mean that the Euro-Mediterranean relations have developed historically because of a European security concern, turned into mainly economic instruments and since the beginning of 2001 also a promising `soft security' dialogue? How are we to interpret the path that traditionally goes from security to economy and recently seems to have closed the circle and returned to security? The description made above suggests a number of considerations, about the values enshrined and the mechanisms by which they might spread around the Mediterranean.

Civilian power constructing a security community in the Mediterranean

These findings confirm the approach of A&C in several ways. Both the GMP and the EMP express the intention of a regional institution such as the EC/EU to promote a security community, i.e. to promote security by fostering mutual understanding and common practices on which to found dependable expectations of peaceful change (cf. Alder and Barnett 1998, 30). The EC/EU approach to security concerns originating in the Mediterranean does not flow from an attempt to strengthen the balance of power. Rather, it aims at increasing cooperation and transactions in the hope that doing both together will foster community-building, which will in turn contribute to security and stability in the area. From this perspective, the EC/EU has indeed provided resources and normative concepts to spark the `social construction' of transnational identities. Moreover, security within the EMP is seen, as A&C suggest, as indivisible among the partner countries, thus coupling the other unilateral or sub-European initiatives (such as EUROFOR and EUROMARFOR) with a more encompassing framework. The approach to security that prevails within the EC/EU is also comprehensive, as it links `hard' security with a whole variety of other factors, among which economic instruments tend to prevail. Furthermore, security is cooperative, i.e. based on confidence and cooperation.

More generally, the idea of A&C that the EU is more or less consciously involved in an attempt at region-building is well founded. In my opinion, the interpretation of the EMP as an attempt to appease security concerns by utilising cooperation on a wide arrange of issues, mainly derived from a non-military domain is correct.

These findings are also consistent with a traditional view of the EC/EU's activity in external relations, which characterises it as a `civilian power.' According to the definition of Hanns Maull, a civilian power involves “a) the acceptance of the necessity of cooperation with others in the pursuit of international objectives; b) the concentration on non-military, primarily economic, means to secure national goals, with military power left as a residual instrument serving essentially to safeguard other means of international interaction; and c) willingness to develop supranational structures to address critical issues of international management.” (1990, 92-3). In the words of Franзois Duchкne, the EC's interest as a civilian power is “as far as possible to domesticate relations between states, including those of its own members and those with states outside its frontiers. This means trying to bring to international problems the sense of common responsibility and structures of contractual politics” which are typical of domestic affairs (1973, 19-20) This seems to be particularly true of the EC/EU's behaviour towards the Mediterranean in both cases examined. As suggested by the approach of A&C, the EC/EU displays a set of `civilian values' entailing the use of civilan ends and means, together with a built-in sense of collective action, expressing - however imperfectly - social values such as equality, justice and tolerance (Duchкne 1973, 20). In other words, the EC/EU's attempt to solve security concerns by `constructing a region' springs from the `civilian power' nature of the EC/EU. The development of a European Security and Defence Policy seems not to have impinged for the time being on the fundamental nature of the EU.

OSCE model or EU model?

The focus on values raises the point whether the EMP is actually reflecting the OSCE model, or the EU model. According to A&C, there is a strong component of OSCE in the EMP, especially in the understanding of security and in the practices that foster community building. This is certainly supported by the empirical evidence reviewed above. The division of the EMP structure into three `volets,' is derived from the original proposal by Spain and Italy of a CSCM, while several of the EMP characteristics that contribute to commmunity building are also similar to those of OSCE (cf. Adler 1998, 132 ff.). The EMP's approach to security is cooperative, as already remarked above. Moreover, the EMP does set standards of practices in several sectors, while establishing mechanisms for accountability and thus for expectations of accountability.

There are a few issues that require more analysis, though. The OSCE model hinges on active socialisation and the international teaching of norms (Adler 1998, 133). As Adler himself recognises, while the OSCE embraces a wide range of members in order to imagine community where there is not yet one, the EU has adopted a different approach. It has established a partnership as a more limited form of relationship with Mediterranean non members. Therefore, the OSCE model would be at work if the EMP was the institutional framework promoting community building. Instead, it is the EU which maintains the agency in the case of the EMP. Instead of having socialisation to we-feeling within the main agential institution, socialisation is meant to occur outside it. Thus, there is the concrete possibility that a logic of `us/them' remains at work. Moreover, a second problem with the OSCE model for the EMP is the EMP's emphasis on economic instruments. Within OSCE, security was and is conceived in a comprehensive way, but the focus remained on security practices, both `hard' and `soft'. While recent developments about Justice and Home Affairs might broaden the range of instruments traditionally discussed in the EMP, economic instruments are for the time being the central element of the whole framework. This resembles the EC/EU model, a key component of which has been the solution of a security problem via economic relations. This impression is reinforced by the way in which ideas developed within the EC/EU spill into Euro-Med relations. Economic ideas have informed the EMP as well as in the GMP. The EMP reflects a neo-liberal consensus, expressed in the imperative of economic liberalisation, which has taken root in Europe since the 1980s. The GMP mirrored instead the Keynesian approach prevailing in Europe at the time, by which economies of scale and public subsidies to the economy were the main road to development. Similarly, cooperation in the domain of Justice and Home Affairs at the EU level has triggered cooperation on the same themes within the EMP. The root of this field of cooperation lies in the Council of Tampere, in October 1999, which indicated this field as a top priority for European integration. The Common Strategy was informed by this compromise reached at the EU level and transferred the priority of Justice and Home Affairs into the Euro-Mediterranean agenda, where it soon took hold, thanks also to external events such as the Intifada 2000 and the terroristic attacks of 9/11.

Comparing the OSCE model and the EU model, therefore, might lead us to recognise that the EMP embodies elements of both, but with an emphasis on the latter. While the EMP reflects the OSCE in its format and in its vision of cooperative and indivisible security, it seems to reflect in its rationale and in the values it embodies the EU experience and the EC/EU agenda. While the A&C approach tends to treat the OSCE and the EU as fundamentally similar, there might be differences worth exploring between the two, as one model might be more conducive to community building than the other. In particular, focusing on the relevance of the EU model entails analysing the role of liberalism (and especially economic liberalism) in the promotion of shared identities. Given the (economic) liberal core of the EMP, this analysis is particularly relevant for Euro-Mediterranean relations. On the one hand, there is a substantial possibility that the EU is applying to the Mediterranean partners a neo-liberal recipe that it would not employ in its member countries without substantial compensating measures to cushion social effects. Also the interpretation of `civil society' within the EU might be more restrictive than the one adopted for Mediterranean societies. On the other hand, it has been suggested by Williams (2001) that the adoption of a liberal perspective by a security community, such as the EU, has an effect on its relations with non-members. Embracing a liberal view both excludes and incorporates those who stand outside it, because it allows the members of the liberal security community to judge where the non members stand vis б vis members. In this perspective, members determine what standards are to be met, and who is achieving them or is on the way to doing so. According to Williams, this represents “one of the most significant structures of power embedded within liberal practices of neutrality and respect” (2001, 18-19). Therefore, the liberal core of the EMP, which it derives from the EU, might constitute a common framework in which EU members define the distance of Mediterranean partners from the prospective liberal security community, while including them in the same liberal world of the EU.

Therefore, if what prevails in the EMP is the EU model, the explanation of values' transfer lies indeed in a sociologically thick realm. In particular, the way common values and principles shared within the EU are transferred into the EMP, i.e. in a framework for relations with non-member partners, is reminiscent of the main tenets of sociological institutionalism. In particular, according to Zucker (1988, 38 ff.), there are cases of `legitimacy by contagion,' when legitimate roles, actions and structures can `infect' other roles, actions and structures. In her perspective, individuals consider as legitimate the behaviour and the discourse of the actors they consider to be legitimate. Therefore, the legitimacy of certain actions and principles is inferred from the legitimacy of the actors originally performing and holding them. Zucker focused on the micro-level, namely group dynamics. However, the same logic seems to be at stake in the transfer of values and principles from the EU to the EMP: the legitimacy of certain ideas for Euro-Mediterranean relations is inferred by member states from the legitimacy of those ideas in the EU context. Broadly put, the same paradigm is applied to a different setting by the same actors if they are not faced with dramatic challenges. Therefore, routine would lead to the adoption of `default' solutions which are inspired by previous experiences in the EU and not by the social facts they are supposed to address, namely the construction of a Mediterranean region. Preliminary interviews I have conducted in Brussels in June 2001, about the way the Justice and Home Affairs chapter was transferred into the EMP seems to confirm this point. In other words, the risk that emerges from the analysis of both the GMP and the EMP is that the EC/EU addresses Euro-Mediterranean relations by proposing a less `compassionate' version of its own model.

What linking mechanism?

The literature on security communities is particularly intriguing because it links with a key debate about the ways in which ideas and values are transmitted. In the case of the EMP, I have suggested in the previous paragraph that a logic of `contagion' might be at work on the part of member states and more generally the EC/EU, in the way they address principles and values to be included in the EMP. However, the question still remains open about how these principles and values are then supposed to be embraced by Mediterranean partners.

The literature on socialisation and value transmission has recently offered two contributions. The first, by Risse, Ropp and Sikkink (1999), has focused on the way human rights have spread in countries previously not respecting them. The authors have developed a `spyral' model, according to which authoritarian regimes become trapped in a discourse of human rights. In the first place, authoritarian regimes adopt such a discourse because of internal and international mobilisation in favour of human rights, but their attitude is purely instrumental. They speak such a discourse only because of the pressure they are under. However, by speaking such a discourse and by cosmetically applying certain measures, these regimes are progressively trapped into respecting human rights and they are slowly socialised into a human rights perspective. This might be the logic at work in the EMP. There are several indications, for instance, that the thin attempt of the EU to promote democratisation across the Mediterranean, through MEDA Democracy The Programme has now been merged into the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR), the scope of which is not limited to the Mediterranean. as well as Art.2 of Association Agreements, has legitimised a mobilisation of NGOs around the issue, while the mention of democracy and human rights has allowed the discussion between member states and Mediterranean partners on these themes in Association Councils. In the field of economic liberalisation, learning on the part of Mediterranean partners seems to have been more consistent and deep. It could be argued that while at first the reforms aimed only at accessing MEDA funds, most of the Mediterranean economies are now undergoing a thorough `mise а niveau,' which could be taken as an indicator of their deeper internalisation of neo-liberal principles. This raises the complicate issue of how much the EU model is in fact reflecting a broader `Western consensus,' witness the way the EU is adopting the benchmarking standards of international organisations.

Checkel (2001) questions this explanation of norm diffusion by suggesting that its microfoundations remain unspecified: how is the shift from instrumental use of norms to full socialisation going to occur? His answer divides between persuaders and persuadees. Argumentative persuasion is “a social process of interaction that involves changing attitudes about cause and effect… is thus a mechanism through which preference change might occur.” (2001, 10). It takes place not only when the persuadee is in a novel environment and has few prior engrained beliefs, but also when the persuader, renowned as an authority in the field, acts deliberatively, in a less politicised context. This perspective raises three points for the case of the EMP. First, `persuadees,' namely Mediterranean partners are not new to the environment. Therefore, the long history of relationships across the Mediterranean might constitute an obstacle to argumentative persuasion. There is empirical evidence to support this veiw, as Mediterranean countries can be sensitive to what are perceived at times as `colonialist' attempts by the Europeans to push certain concepts through. Second, the perspective suggested by Checkel is consisent with the idea of `legitimacy by contagion,' that I put forward above. The fact that the persuader is seen as speaking from an authoritative position contributes, according to Checkel, to the attention of persuadees, as they want to belong to the same inner group as the persuaders. This is also confirmed by the experience of the EMP, as the Mediterranean partners view it as a means to a closer relationship with the EU. Third, Checkel suggests that a less politicised context might make more contribution to effective persuasion. Within the EMP, politicised opportunities for dialogue tended to reflect very heated and entrenched opinions about the Arab-Israeli question, thus dooming meetings to failure, such as that held in Malta in 1997. Therefore, the hypothesis of Checkel might bear some value, especially when taken with the suggestion of A&C about the usefulness of seminar diplomacy. Both hint to the added value of secluded, non-politicised meetings. The format according to Checkel's perspective would point, however, to informal `Gymnick-like' meetings of ministers of Foreign Affairs, while A&C would include a mix of public officials and academics.